


Cutting ties

by FiveRaysOfSun



Category: NU'EST
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Red String of Fate, Slow Burn, i feel like im forgetting another tag, rest of nu'est and other labelmates as side characters, wait ok right i remember now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 14:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 46,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16120625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiveRaysOfSun/pseuds/FiveRaysOfSun
Summary: Jonghyun has the ability to see red strings of fate connecting people who are soulmates, however he doesn’t have one himself yet. On a fated day out of nowhere a red string has appeared around his wrist, only for him to become horrified finding out that his soulmate is Kang Dongho, his childhood enemy. Jonghyun is determined to find a way to cut the string, before the two are bought together by their fate.





	Cutting ties

**Author's Note:**

> its a mess here

Ever since Jonghyun was a child, he realized that he could see these tiny red threads tied to peoples wrists, yet nobody else around him never seemed to notice. Whenever he tried to convince others that the strings were there, he would always get mocked and laughed at, or in the worst case even cursed at, long before he even knew what those strings stood for. 

As he grew older he finally understood what they meant, when strings of two people met from wrist to wrist, it meant that they had been bonded together, inseparable. Once a red string appeared on someone’s hand connecting them to someone else, that other person was meant to become your love for the rest of your life. 

When he was still little, he quickly noticed that both of the threads on his parents wrists, did not connect to each other and each lead elsewhere. His family had been perfect, he was raised by the most perfect young parents he could ever wish for, and they were both so deeply in love, but in the end it was just not meant for them to be. Jonghyuns extended family had called the boy cursed for predicting, perhaps even causing the divorce of his own parents, so ever since then he had promised not to tell anyone of the strings anymore.

 

Jonghyun had come to a place too crowded, today like any other day the subway station had become a sea of red threads. The threads were ghostly, Jonghyun could easily go through them without breaking them. Yet they often confused his vision, he could hardly tell a real string from an imaginary one, and the bright color stung his eyes when it was all he could see.

The student had sat down, checking the time on his phone to see if he’d still have spare time before class. The standing handles shook once the train began to move, quietly rattling above the boys head during the ride. 

Distracted by something appearing in the corner of his eye, he raised his sights to see a couple and their friend sitting directly across from Jonghyun. The guy appeared to be chummy with the girl on his left, while his wrist was tied to the younger smiling female to his right.

“Gross, a cheater.” Jonghyun had accidentally uttered while glaring at the man in front of him. The eyes of the man lit up hearing the insult, almost as if he knew it was directed at him. Flustered by his own outburst, Jonghyun quickly sat back up to switch seats.

Now he was late for class, well he wasn’t late, but he was one of the last to enter, meaning that everyone would be looking at him once he rushes in, already making his crowd anxiety kicking in full throttle before he had even reached the doorway. And this time, he had truly wished his classmate Hwang Minhyun had not waved at him sneaking in.

Jonghyun slouched forwards running up the steps to his seat, fruitlessly hoping that if he kept his head lowered less people would see him. However much to his misfortune, from the corner of his eye, he had already seen the rowdy guys at the front point to him and cheer, as if Jonghyun was the mascot of their mockery. Kang Dongho and his goons, their group always acted like a pack of male dogs straight out of high school. Jonghyun opted to ignore them like always.

Minhyun, greeted him with the usual smile. The two had known each other for a while now and this guy even knew of Jonghyuns secret, yet he was still the subject of his friends teasing.

Once Jonghyun had finally concluded his run to the lesson by ceremonially plopping down in his seat, the tall boy quickly sneaked up to hold up his wrist to his face with a sly smirk, “Is it there yet?” This was perhaps already the eight hundredth time Hwang had already asked him.

“Stop asking me all the time, its not there. You will be single forever.” Jonghyun shrugged to get Minhyun out of his face.

It appeared to his tall classmate that his always go lucky Jonghyun was a little grumpy this morning. Minhyun thought it was cute, Jonghyun was like a kid who’s cheeks you couldn’t resist to pull. But for the sake of their friendship and Minhyuns intact jaw, he held it back this time.

Minhyun watched the boy lean forwards in his seat, flattening his cheek to the table, and judging by his giant dark eye circles, he figured that Jonghyun had probably been playing video games all night again. Deciding to let his friend sleep for a bit without waking him up.

After a few minutes of having his eyes closed, Jonghyun twitched back awake with a snort, luckily he had not been loud enough to interrupt the class that had already proceeded without him. However the constant monotone voice of his lecturer was making him sleepy all over again. This time Jonghyun did not fight back the irresistible urge to close his tired eyes, slowly fluttering his eyelids back and forth from open to closed, each one of his blinks being much longer than the one before.

He awake blinked again, blurry vision focused on his extended arm laid over the desk he had been using as pillow. But something weird was happening while his eyes were still dimming. Perhaps he was in a dream already, but he could’ve sworn he was seeing a red string fade in around his wrist. Of course, Jonghyun didn’t react to it, believing for it to be just a part of his imagination at first. 

Jonghyun shut his eyes fully, letting himself finally drift off. But then he thought about it again, clearly he wasn’t fully asleep yet, so maybe that silly little string around his arm was in fact – real?

Jonghyun snapped his eyes wide, like he was in a horror movie, trying his best not to freak out, but it was true. There was a freaking red string of fate around his arm, it had just appeared out of literally nowhere.

Jonghyun tried to communicate to Minhyun with his pained expressions, yet the other man would not budge, his eyes peeled to lecture monitor. So the tall bastard only shooed away Jonghyuns desperate attempts of communication, even though this was an absolute emergency.

In middle of freaking out, the shorter male returned to his new thread with a sour look, he knew one day he was destined to fall in love, but he never wished to know when exactly, and to who exactly, his ability to see the red strings of fate was a spoiler. 

Only after another round of shock, he suddenly realized that the thread was stretched long, it meant that his soulmate had to be somewhere close. It wasn’t at all unusual for people to meet and fall in love in collage, Jonghyun was in his early twenties, so it only made sense if it happened around this time.

He gulped looking around the inside of the giant lecture hall, shaking with anxiety, “In here?” He concluded, “Who?”

His eyes nervously scanned the room to find the other end of the thread, the time almost seemed to trickle away much slower as his eyes followed where the red yarn lead, bringing Jonghyuns nervous vision to that fated person, it was someone whom Jonghyun indeed remembered also not having a thread of fate tied to them before this day – that freaking dumbass, Kang Dongho. Jonghyun couldn’t even believe it himself, the fate had put him with Dongho.

Jonghyuns first notion upon finding out who his soulmate is, was the morbid realization that he absolutely had to kill him now. It was the only way.

In both shock and fear, Jonghyun had somehow choked on his spit, if that was even possible, and he had been so successfully loud this time it had finally gained Minhyuns attention.

“What is it?” The tall male mouthed to Jonghyun, who couldn’t even form a comprehensible response anymore, his bottom lip quivering and eyes large with obvious pain.

The odd moment of reveal was interrupted by the teacher concluding the class, Jonghyun was taken aback realizing for how long he had actually been asleep. So now even if Jonghyuns voice tried to pass his own lips, it got drowned out by the dominant sound of all the zippers in the hall closing simultaneously. 

Oblivious, Dongho who had been busy snoring this whole lecture, drooling from his gaping wide mouth, was only now waking up once the class done. Jonghyun had glanced at his nemesis again for only a second, but even just that much had bought him near tears.

Minhyun shot his face away from Jonghyun, distracted by the list of names the lecturer had placed on the monitor at the end of the class. It was for made up groups that had to be working in pairs, randomly selected from the people currently present in the lecture hall. Jonghyun squint his eyes to see who he had been paired with, praying to all things holy for it not to be the same guy.

However, unfortunately for him, had been fucked over yet again – Kim Jonghyun and Kang Dongho, research paper partners. The paranoid student could already hear Donghos friends snicker, hearing them laugh was always like nails on a chalkboard.

Just as Minhyun was about to open his mouth to interrupt Jonghyuns internal breakdown and ask him what was his deal, he witnessed the same boy bolt away from the desk, “See you later Hwang!” The tall boy scratched the back of his neck in confusion, “Oh. You too, I guess.”

“Excuse me Miss? Can I request a different partner?” Jonghyun almost tripped himself in the way of the teacher, peeling at his nervous thumbs.

“Of course!” The teacher waved her hand, calming her student. “How about Jihoon? He was not in class today.” Jonghyun suggested. “I’m sorry, but Jihoon appears to have caught the measles.”

Now Jonghyun had to quickly think of a back up. “Uhh— what about Nayoung?” He was interrupted by the teacher. “I am afraid, Miss Nayoung is currently away to participate in a fencing tournament.”

“Seriously?” Jonghyuns face immediately sunk. He watched as his teacher typed at her keyboard as slowly as humanly possible, while everyone else he could ask to switch partners with, were already leaving the class with their pairs, lessening Jonghyuns chances of survival even more.

“I am sorry. But there is nobody else.” The teacher tried to cheer up the gloomy student with a smile. The student knew this could not be a coincidence, instead it was almost like the fate was forcing him to near his soulmate already.

 

Dongho slammed his lunch down on the cafeteria table so hard, he could have sent it flying directly into his friends faces, if only he had put any more strength into it. The man was literally fuming with anger today, and his friends found it hilarious.

To him, out of all people he could gave been matched with for the project, it had to be that sorry loser, and now his friends would absolutely never let him live this down. 

The thing was, Dongho had hated Jonghyun for so long he had even forgotten why. The two first met in elementary school where mean little Dongho would fight him for toys. Then years later, they had met again entering university randomly running into each other by chance, but their reconciliation fell through however, as both of them had remained the same grudges many years later.

Donghos friends saw the other man as more of his rival, sworn enemy more like. It was so funny for them to see Dongho always sweating about how he doesn’t want to have classes with ‘that weeb’, in fear of being put into the same work group as him, only for this to happen.

Donghos glare magnetically shot to Jonghyun, who just so happened to be running through the cafeteria. The boy was already dead meat, Dongho sent death glares his way.

 

Back in his dark bedroom that late night, Jonghyun had tired out his own feet walking in perfect circles from one end of the room to the other, not knowing what to do with himself anymore. He tugged and pulled on the string, but no matter how hard he had yanked it, it would not break. 

Why did it have to be Dongho, that selfish hooligan, he cursed at the walls of his room, why him. Jonghyun threw swear words he had never even spoken out loud before, all at the useless yarn tied to his wrist. 

As the night proceeded, and he was still not in bed, he started to consider more drastic options, contemplating bringing his arm out to the shed and finding a saw if it comes down to it. However, there had to be another way, some kind of a spell to lift this curse, he told himself. Definitely, there had to be. 

This meant that if Jonghyun wanted to be free from Dongho, he had to act quick – the red string meant that eventually the two would become lovers. Even though right now, his toes shriveled up even thinking about it. If he did not do something, that would actually happen.

Jonghyun snapped his fingers typing at his computer at the speed of light, opening twenty pages of the red string legend at once, scanning each one for possible clues. To his misfortune, nobody – absolutely nobody online seemed to know how to solve the riddle of breaking the cursed thread. He kept coming across scary big words like; unbreakable, permanent.

Even just imagining himself sitting side by side with that brute, giggling and cupping each others cheeks, the thought of that made him want to tear at his own hair. One thing was clear, for the time being it was best for him to avoid Dongho at all costs. But there was just one thing standing in his to play out that plan, their group project – Jonghyun realized he was royally fucked.

 

The cold next morning made even the grass quiver, and it was only going to get colder from here, as the last month of summer quickly wasted away.

Jonghyuns hands were buried deep into his jacket to warm his dying fingers, cold wind eating away at his reddened cheeks. The freezing student sat by himself under the hood of bus station, waiting for the transport to take him to the subway. 

But as if his day just couldn’t just get any worse, the devil himself in flesh – Dongho, walked up all proud to the same bus stop, pretending he could not see Jonghyun at all. However, Jonghyun just knew that the pompous asshole had definitely already noticed him, because if that guy much rather freeze out on the street, than to near him under the roofed station, then by so be it.

Jonghyun himself had gone to this bus stop almost every day, but he had never met Dongho here, it made him wonder. Perhaps, It was literally their fate to keep meeting. He cringed at that thought.

When the skies began to sprinkle a little bit of rain, Dongho was helpless to keep ignoring Kim any longer, and soon enough was forced to join him under the same shelter. It was strange, Dongho remembered accidentally looking at the forecast today and it never mentioned a rainfall.

“So, are you just going to ignore me?” Dongho finally spoke, his initial greeting sounding more like a bark of an angry puppy, rather than an intimidating classmate. “You were ignoring me first.” Jonghyun defended himself, and his voice slso didn’t come out nearly as threatening as he had wanted it to be either.

Dongho scoffed, “We have homework together, remember?” He whined about it, but Jonghyun said nothing, he was just being mute like always. “Well I guess there goes my grade—my fucking grade—” Dongho cursed under his breath.

They boy pointed to the accused, “Give me your phone number!” He demanded. “Eh?” Jonghyun suddenly panicked.

It could not be that Dongho had fallen for him so soon, but Jonghyun guessed that it really couldn’t be helped if it was a part of their fate. “D-dongho,” Jonghyun stuttered, trying to keep himself in one piece, “I am sorry but-“

“What the fuck?” Dongho jumped realizing Jonghyun had gotten it all wrong, “Not in that way idiot! Its for the project!” The man knitted his eyebrows into a thick angry line that spread across his whole forehead, “What are you fucking gay or something?” He shrieked.

There was a brief pause, a moment of silence. Jonghyun had noted that if the thread of fate had already connected the two males together, it could only mean one thing – they were both gay. Jonghyun thinned his lips at the same prick, not wanting to out himself right now either.

It didn’t look like this guy had any gay friends to hang out with, or any friends for that matter, people at school actively avoided him for his freshman year crimes, so perhaps this was his weird way of trying to send out his desperate signals and try to find anyone to communicate with.

“Umm, okay.” Jonghyun grimaced. “Well are you?” Dongho kept shouting in horror, as if Jonghyun not giving him a direct answer meant a confirmation. “No, are you?” Jonghyun whined in protest.

Their glare off was interrupted by the sound of tires collecting next to their station, the bus arriving just in time. As Jonghyun was to brush past Dongho, the other man suddenly stopped him by snatching his phone from him.

Instead of copping it, Dongho only took it temporarily to press his own number into Jonghyuns phone, “There! Don’t even think about ignoring my texts!” He spat into the unwilling ear of the other male and went back to take over the hooded bus station.

Jonghyun blinked at the toddler like man returning to his seat, angrily sitting legs crossed, “Go ahead you jackass, I’ll just take the next bus.” The man hissed, hating the weird stare Jonghyun was giving him. 

Jonghyun knew that there were no other buses going the same direction, so if Dongho actually stayed here waiting for this one to lap, then he would be late. Jonghyun was amazed by how much this guy despised him just to avoid riding the same bus.

Dongho balled up his fist seeing the bus take off without him, but he couldn’t dare to stay near Jonghyun who had made him mad right now. Flustered that his little outburst probably of made him look like total asshole.

 

“I see you are wearing a red hoodie today!” Minhyun greeted his friend at the schools cafeteria, always complimenting his brave choices in color.

Jonghyun sighed hard enough to flutter his own eyebrows, sitting down to join his overly chatty friend. “Yeah, I wore this so I don’t have to see it.” Jonghyun had pulled his sleeves up all the way to his knuckles. “See what?” Minhyun tilted his head.

Jonghyun had only just realized that this whole time he forgot to even tell his friend. “How do I put this?” He began to speak, but only after swallowing down the feeling of regret lingering at the deep end of his throat.

A loud sudden thud right by his ear stopped him from saying more. Kang Dongho himself had plopped down at their table uninvited.

“So, I prepared a study plan,” He began to speak, as if he was talking to himself. Ignoring the pre-existing conversation at the same table.

“I am eating, Kang.” Jonghyun warned the boy now sitting beside him. The hatered was mutual, Dongho looked like he was about to snap over on his side of the table, even the pencil in his hand was under so much pressure it looked like it was about to fly away into the orbit, once it finally succumbs under the pressure of his wide thumb.

“The faster we finish this research, the faster we can get rid of one another, got it?” Dongho raised his chin at the other male, then throwing a nasty glare to the person sitting across the table too, marking Jonghyun as his property.

“Yo. You can leave.” Dongho pointed Hwang to go annoy someone else. Because the atmosphere was already tight over here, the wide eyed boy was more than willing to comply, already pulling his chair back, before his friend cut in. “He was sitting here with me long before you. Hwang has the right to stay here.” 

Jonghyun argued back with Dongho. Making Minhyun, just as wide eyed, sink back onto the stool he had just gotten up from, only because Jonghyuns voice sounded more scary right now.

“We are discussing schoolwork, and that dweeb is not part of it. Unless you want me to invite all of my friends to sit here too?” Kang had threatened Jonghyun. And the next second, from the corner of his eye, the boy with the red hoodie saw his friend, his only backup, already fleeing into the distance. Jonghyun learned to accept the betrayal, deciding to read Donghos notes purely out of spite to see how shitty they were.

However, reading through a small portion was actually pleasantly surprised to see how well written everything was. Jonghyun had originally thought that the larger man was not good at anything at all. Maybe this guy actually did keep his remaining brain cells inside of his massive arms somewhere.

“These suggestions are okay, I guess.” Jonghyun spoke in an honest voice, only for Dongho to slip out a proud snort, “Obviously.”

Jonghyun had figured the guy would respond that way, turns out this idiot couldn’t even take a simple compliment from him. The long sleeved male breathed angry hot air through his nostrils, trying to be quiet and avoid the next argument. 

But when Dongho was sitting so close to him, he could see their red threads link to one another, Jonghyun had never seen anything like this so up close. Staring even a little bit made his anxiety kick in again, Dongho was his soulmate, and he was scared, because he didn’t want this. Dongho must of noticed the boys body flinch beside his, the boys pupils growing larger in size, like a rabid dog he had probably already sniffed out Jonghyuns fear.

“Can you send me pictures of your notes? I’ll go through them later.” The chair beneath Jonghyun squealed loud, as he had jumped up from the table as a defense mechanism. Staring directly in front of him to avoid any sort of unnecessary eye contact with his soulmate.

“But—we are not done yet?” Dongho threw his shoulder back to yell at his classmate already far behind him, only prompting the bastard to walk away even faster.

The fleeing male had decided to lay down some rules for himself – never talk to Dongho, and never even look at him, just pretend he is not even there.

 

“You and Dongho are what?” 

Minhyun was almost shouting from the shock, his voice echoing off far across the outdoor park area of the campus. Jonghyun his angry walk to gesture a finger to his lips, begging for his tall classmate to shut his little, nothing good for, mouth.

The new information was quite hard for Minhyun to digest. The once two childhood enemies had become – soulmates. Minhyun tried to picture it to his friend by producing a visual by using inappropriate finger gestures to himself, his stare had soon became blank, lifeless almost, as it actually slowly sunk in.

“So you don’t want to go out with him?” Minhyun was slow. “Hell no. I am trying to get rid of him.” Jonghyun wiped his nose looking off to the ground as if he was guilty of committing a sin by not wanting to accept his fate, but he was really just that desperate.

“Can the guy really be all that bad though?” Minhyun tried to calm his friend despite his claims, “Are you trying to talk me into this? I don’t want to end up living the rest of my life in some mountain shed with him.” Jonghyun whined.

The problem with him was that he was always assuming the worst, because he was so blinded by fear, Minhyun was positive that Dongho would not end up in as a nomad living in a shed. That guy had actual good grades, unlike someone.

“All I am saying is, maybe you should give the guy an honest chance.” Minhyun remained smug, crossing his arms to Jonghyun.

“Out of question. I am not going out with the guy who stole my crayons from me in elementary school.” Jonghyun had finally put his foot down.

“But hey, can you at least help me out? I really need to find a way to undo the string.” Jonghyun changed his tone, so Minhyun was sure to agree - anything for a friend.

 

The day had gone by quickly, the broken bedroom blinds of Donghos apartment would only let through dim light of the small stars. The undressed boy slept with his face down and hips up in the air, in a desperate attempt to find a good sleeping position that would cure his lack of sleep that night. His annoying classmate had been driving him crazy all day, not answering his texts, not updating about their joint homework.

Just as he was about to finally fall asleep, the scream of his phone woke him right back up. He swore, he had never wanted to murder a device this much in his life. Dongho whined, his face buried into his pillow, a loud wimpy groan of his bounced off the walls of his dark bedroom. 

The flash of light coming from his device made him hiss. “Who the heck is it?” He uttered, waiting for the letters to come into focus; “New message from Kim Jonghyun.” 

Attached to the blank message was a three page long draft. Dongho sighed in relief that the punk he had been paired with was actually doing his homework.

“You could’ve told me you were doing it, so we could’ve done it together.” Dongho yelled at the other male over the text, but never got a reply. He groaned again, throwing his upper body up into the air like a diver frisk out of the water, crashing back down limp into a lump of blankets.

 

Jonghyun had specifically gone to the bus stop earlier today to catch an earlier bus schedule purely for purposes of avoiding Dongho. Yet there he was, stomping his way over here like someone had called him to be here, it appeared that the other guy must of had the same idea as him. Jonghyun could definitely feel his stomach twist, his sad fate was indeed unavoidable, as if the entire universe hated him.

The hooded boy sat static trying to ignore the brute sitting down next to him on the very same bench, yet for his own sake, at least a whole mile away from Jonghyun. 

There was an awkward pause in sound, neither of them wanted be the first one to speak. Dongho looked angry like always, sitting hunched over, hands clasped together over his lap, legs spread so painfully wide it seemed like his knees hate one another.

Jonghyun glanced over thinking about how long would it take for the two men sitting on the bus stop bench next to each other, to fall for each other. Jonghyun could not tell, but luckily he felt absolutely nothing for the other man yet, even though the thread was always there like a scary reminder.

“Your draft,” Donghos sudden loud voice almost made Jonghyun piss himself. “It wasn’t that bad, but I’ll still rewrite it.” He scratched the back of his coned head. “Thanks.” Jonghyun said of the habit of being polite, regretting it immediately after.

This day was different, Dongho was not yelling at him for reason, Jonghyun figured that perhaps he was just trying to keep himself better self composed, even thought it was most likely only because of his grade.

Jonghyun took his seat inside of the front of the bus, and Dongho brushed past him to sit at the very back, not brave enough to be near Jonghyun. Only sending spiteful death glares from the back. Jonghyun could literally feel eyes glued to the back of his skull the whole ride, and every time he tried to sneak a look behind him, the other boy would always be pretending he had been staring out the window the whole time. 

The subway was getting filled to the brim today. The doors of the metro slid open with a beep and people began to pile in into one huge clump with no place left to sit or even stand, Jonghyun was quickly squeezed out of his seat, instead grabbing onto a dinky little handle dangling from the roof for his dear life.

The doors of the metro were unable to close as last of passengers were still stomping at the door, everyone pushing and pulling, peoples long hair stretching over strangers clothes, reading glasses of middle aged businessmen getting dislocated off their faces. Jonghyuns eyes were starting to hurt from the amount of red strings present inside of his vision, he could not even begin to count, all tied and tangled around everyone and everywhere he looked.

And somehow out of all people in there, Dongho was the one to bump into him chest first, grabbing straight onto the same tiny handle as him. Their red strings hugging.

“You!” Dongho seemed to be surprised himself. The man stared at him eyes wide as two moons, “Are you a stalker?”

Jonghyun could only stare back at the man just as wide eyed as him, how could he even explain to someone that it was literally fate bringing them together without getting beat up.

“I—” Jonghyun cut himself off as soon as the glass metro doors beeped and shut closed. Nervously waiting for the whole thing to shake when the metro would roll out of the station. Pre-instinctively grabbing harder into the handle holding him tall.

As soon as the metro began to depart, the footing became clumsy and someone had soon bumped into Jonghyun from behind hard enough to make him wobble like a grass in the wind. The space around him had become even tighter, and then another bump had squished him right up against his childhood nemesis, who stood hard in place like a wide fortress. 

Dongho could literally feel the text message Jonghyun had just gotten from Minhyun, as if the phone was in his own pocket.

“Who is it?” Dongho demanded. “M-my girlfriend.” Jonghyun lied, with his own very eyes about to pop out of his skull out of stress any minute. Donghos eyebrow twitched in response, unconvinced.

As soon as the crowd shrunk from being a one tight knot at the next station, Jonghyun quickly used that as his chance, jumping out right before the doors drew shut. He would much rather be late to class than touch that jerk for another hot minute or less. Dongho had raised to his toes to see above the tall heads of people, watching Jonghyun run off.

“What’s that guys freaking problem?” He thought to himself, shrugging.

 

Minhyun tried to look his best and the most casual while waiting for his friend, getting into his next pose by trying out placing an elbow on the handle of the bench. He tilted his head, deciding to try something else, and flung his legs crossed only to change his mind again last second.

“Wah!” The tall boy suddenly shrieked, not expecting for Jonghyun to just pop out of nowhere like that. “Are you okay?” He worried, hearing his friends distant pants.

“Not until you tell me how to get this thing off my wrist, Hwang.” Jonghyun had regained his breath, shaking a blaming finger at his friend.

“Well, lucky you!” The boy grinned, “I found a person who sells charms and other superstitious stuff, they are witch.” Minhyun began to further explain his find, “Honestly, the business sounds like an obvious scam, but they do too consultations apparently.”

“A witch?” The short male repeated to himself, feeling unsure about how ridiculous that sounded, before choosing to ignore the fact for now, “Great! Let’s go there now!” Jonghyun was so desperate at this point, he didn’t even try to doubt anything anymore, and ran his fingers through Minhyuns, clamping down on them like a bear trap, to drag him off campus.

“Jonghyun, I have schoolwork!” Minhyun took offense, yanking back. Jonghyun glared at his friend with those gloomy dark eyes of his, looking like he could absolutely kill a man right now. “Actually, now that I think about it—” Minhyun laughed, but the other male could still see that big worried gulp going down the mans long neck.

 

The duo now stood in the crossroads of a small residential neighborhood, with no sign of any reasonable business or a shop in a place like this. Only the dry leaves scraping against the pavement interrupting the long dead silence of this place.

“I think we got lost.” Jonghyun shook his long sleeves to get the cold away from him. “But, I am sure this is the place!” Hwang was absolutely confident.

Soon enough, the pair stumbled upon a weird looking house which seemed to match what they had been looking for. It’s creepy décor was oddly more convenient for Halloween, weird statues of Greek beasts and painted vases housing dried out flowers welcomed their way to the front entrance. The place gave both of them the creeps, yet the sign board on the door matched the title on Minhyuns phone, this had to be the right place.

“Hey, if they sell stuff to lift curses, are they going to place a curse on us if we go in and don’t buy anything?” Minhyun worried not able to stop his friend, before Jonghyun was already brave enough to push open the front door. A wind chime made their entrance known, they cautiously walked down a tight hallway that lead to another opened room. 

“Welcome!” A woman seemingly just around their age cheered from behind a counter. She was just not what they had expected for a self proclaimed witch to look like, she seemed – normal.

The woman had noticed their immediate rude looks, “What do you boys want?” She put her arms to her hips. Jonghyun could hear Minhyuns gag of spit slide down his long throat beside his ear, this prick was for some reason scared shitless.

“Well, we actually-“ Minhyun began to speak, both arms clung onto the smaller boy for protection.

“This is not that kinda shop.” She blinked at the two, prompting Jonghyun to quickly tear the useless male off from him, to speak to woman himself.

“I am looking for something that can lift curses!” He spoke in a loud voice, and the woman behind the counter entered beast mode, already searching for list of curse remedies in her handbook. The boys made a quick glance at one another in confusion.

“Kyulkyung, nice to meet you.” She extended her hand across the counter, at least five rings worn on her every finger. “Or you can call me Miss Pinky, my codename for the business.” 

“Right, formalities. I’m Jonghyun and he is not so important.” The male shook the hand, allowing the rings to crush his fingers. “Hey, you punk!” Minhyun whisper-shouted into his ear.

“Sooo, what kinda curse is it?” The woman sat her elbows down, ears all open. 

“It’s a red string of fate.” Jonghyun admitted, watching the face of the woman freeze up. “That is not a curse, it’s a blessing.”

Jonghyun hated to call this thing a blessing even before he got one of his own. He had seen many of his friends fall for someone, only for their lovers wrist to suddenly gain a new thread leading elsewhere. No matter who you are tied to, the ending was always tragic, likewise that’s how his own parents had split up.

“Whatever. I want it cut, is there a way?” Jonghyun scoffed and then Pinky nodded proud, yes there was. She quickly bought out a pair of handcrafted scissors, very antique looking, with eyes of large colored gems.

“Something like this has to be personally crafted for the specific user, and it can only be used once.” She instructed the boys, who were now both mesmerized by the fanciest pair of scissors they’ve ever seen in their lives.

“Wait! How do we even know this stuff is real? Those look like just ordinary scissors!” Minhyun jumped from Jonghyuns behind to expose the business. “If you don’t believe then don’t! Everything here has been handcrafted, plus these gems aren’t made of plastic you know!” The woman began to argue with the tall male.

“I’ll have it!” Jonghyun cut into the argument, reaching for the scissors, ready to blow his entire tuition money without second thought. 

In an act of self defense, Lime protectively snapped the scissors back to her chest, “I said they have to be custom made for user, from scratch. It will take days to make it.”

“Days?” Jonghyun trembled, “For how much?”

 

Pinky returned back to stirring her now cooling cup of coffee once the satisfied customers had finally left after placing their order. She raised her eyes from the cup, staring at the ceiling trying to memorize the faces of the two boys who had come in today. She always made sure to remember the faces of her clients, in order to not accidentally sell them the same object twice. It was none of her business to know what the boy intends to do with those snippers, but it was in everyone’s best interest if he did not go around cutting threads each time he pleased.

The wind chimes went off again, “Welcome-!“ She called out before stopping, the face of the visitor seemed weirdly familiar, “Oh, you again.” She faced a nervous Minhyun, who was alone this time. 

“I wanted to know more about the red string thingies.” He was shy to ask, “Well then, have a seat!” Pinky instructed, almost drooling from her lip at the chance to talk folklore with the somewhat semi interested male.

Minhyun sat and thinned his lips, before finally speaking up, “Is there a way to perhaps – attach a red string of fate?” He tilted his head trying to pour out the uneasiness out of his ear.

What he had described was the exact opposite of what Jonghyun had wanted, and Pinky grew more curious by the second. “There is a way, if only you choose to believe it.” She smirked, eyes sly as a fox. “Tell me!” Minhyun smiled back in excitement.

“You tie a special red yarn around two people, and by midnight the fake string of fate should turn into a real one.” Hearing some nonsense like this made Minhyun laugh out loud like it had been a joke, what kind of idiot would even fall for something like that.

The angry woman then raised from the table, walking to the counter in a manner that made Minhyun feel threatened, he cleared his throat regretting his laugh.

She rolled her eyes before turning to Minhyun again, ignoring the mans mockery, “You got a celebrity you wish to be fated with?” She spoke up, switching to informal speech. 

“Hehe, yeah.” The mans chuckle sounded suspiciously nervous.

“What makes you think I’d sell it to you for such a perverse reason!” Her suddenly raised voice made Minhyun jolt in his seat, “Well, what if I don’t believe it! I am buying yarn to knit myself socks!” He shout back.

Pinky stomped over to Minhyun who had frozen solid fearing her wrath again, and she leaned in to whisper the price into the customers ear. 

“What the hell? Why is it thrice as expensive?” He gasped. “It’s expensive, because you have to work three times harder to be loved.” Pinky waved her finger. 

Minhyun wanted to snort at such corny nonsense excuse to overprice a piece of string, standing up from the table with an angry pout, “Never mind then!” He fled from the shop.

 

Jonghyuns slow road from school lead down a hill, the endlessly tall apartment buildings cast giant pillars of dark shadows over his path.

At the end of the day, he was recalling todays success of avoiding his soulmate. Somehow he had managed to not run into the other male again today, perhaps it was purely because the both of them were both doing their best to avoid one another, hopefully it would stay that way for much longer. Jonghyun wondered how that guy could ever fall for him first, obviously Dongho hated him since they were kids.

Jonghyun heard a bike bell alarm him from behind, turning around to look behind and step out of the way, only for his face to draw pale upon the discovery of the identity of the biker.

“Hey stalker!” Dongho had appeared behind him as if he had just crawled out of the ground.

“Stalker – me?” The timid boy was confused about such an insult. He then noticed Dongho was struggling to keep his front wheel steady, as two grocery bags weighted down on his handle bars.

“Come help me lift these.” His bully whined, shoulders aching from the amount of not to go flying face first down the steep hill road.

Jonghyun would have turned back and helped Dongho, only if not for Donghos smiling face of relief when he came forward. Terrified of interaction Jonghyun shot his body back from the bike, startling Dongho to wobble for balance. 

“What the hell, just help me out here dude!” He cursed watching Jonghyun change his mind speed walk down the hill.

Jonghyun couldn’t even look back, he was scared of Dongho as if his touch was venomous. And if he had helped him, if they spoke and exchanged conversations – they’d catch gross feelings for one another.

Right as he started to feel as if he’d be regretting his choice not to help, his is ears picked up a loud crash noise, followed by a long groan in the distance. Jonghyun winced trying to not look back and just keep going, but he felt so bad he stood in the path unable to move anywhere.

Dongho had not only fallen off his bike, but also slid on his way down. Whilst groaning on the ground, trying to figure out how to get out from under his bike without bruising anything else, he had decided to add today to the list of his consecutive unlucky days as well. 

A pair of arms rushed to unhinge his leg from underneath the frame of the bike, and when the scratched up man looked to review his help, he was surprised to see Jonghyun, and immediately felt like help was not needed for him. He wanted to scold the guy, but his knees hurt so damn much he was forced to just accept his help.

 

Dongho had been sat down at an outdoor stool under a sun umbrella belonging to a grocery store, angrily poking the spinning tire of his bike with the tip of his shoe, like a kid angry at his own bike for failing him.

He hissed as Jonghyun put not a lot of care in how he placed band aids over his hurting elbow. Dongho was now suspicious of the guy, one second he was trying to watch him fly head over wheels into the concreate like the joyous bastard he was, the next he was running at him, sweating to apply medicine into his scars.

“Are you trying to make up for our past or something?” Dongho poked the male who replied unwillingly, “No, I am being responsible for your injuries.” The boys tone made Dongho roll his eyes.

“You live nearby right?” Jonghyun was avoidant of his eyes, speaking rather to the ground than Donghos face. “What’s with that weird question?”

Jonghyun jolted, he didn’t mean to be weird again, “If you live around here I’d help you carry your bags back home.” He kindly offered, much to Donghos amazement, as not even Donghos own friends were willing to carry shit for him.

“I just moved out here, live just around the block. So I think I’ll be fine.” Dongho explained, glancing over to his torn shopping bag carrying a mush of spilled dairy products, his stomach began to scream in agony just by looking.

“Wait, then you must live nearby too right?” He began to ask questions to Jonghyun instead, but the boy was hesitant to give him an answer. 

“Hey, stalker. I asked you a question.” Dongho spoke up again after the male was too shy to answer the first time.

“Yeah, I do. But I am not a stalker.” He mumbled, now treating Donghos bruised knuckles, until he snatched them back to force Jonghyun to raise his sunken eyes.

“Then how do you explain the fact I keep running into you all over the place for the past few days, you totally gotta be stalkin’ me, right?” Dongho leaned closer to glare into Jonghyuns face close up, sending waves of fear down his spine.

“Coincidence?” Jonghyun suggested, only to make Dongho laugh, but agree. “Why am I so unlucky?” The same man spoke under his breath, scratching the itchy spot on the top of his head.

“Hey, we should hang out more.” Dongho excitedly shot his eyes back to Jonghyun, who almost sobbed on the spot to yelp out a desperate “No.” 

Obviously weirded out by such an outburst Dongho gave him a dirty look, “Uhh, we have homework together.” He reminded the anxious male.

“Ah, yeah.” Joghyuns ears began to grow red from embarrassment, “Let’s do that some other time.” He lowered his eyes in apology for acting up like such a weirdo, although for Dongho it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, by now he had already accepted that Jonghyun was probably the most awkward person on earth.

“At school then, yeah?” Dongho darted his eyes from left to right, trying to figure out how to get rid of this guy for tonight. “Mhm.” The dark haired boy nodded his chin to the floor, eager to watch Donghos heels press away from underneath the legs of his bench.

 

These past few morning Jonghyun had been pulling off spy techniques just to get to school in peace. Knowing he was bound to run into Dongho at every chance, he tried to stay hidden at every cost.

An automated voice announced that the metro doors have opened, people followed it onto the small cart, amongst them was Jonghyun, barely able to fit through with a phone pressed to his ear.

“Minhyun, my gosh.” The man pant into his phone relieved to hear the voice of his friend, “What’s up?” The boy on the other side spoke with a deep sleepy grunt, Jonghyun could barely hear him over the loud sounds of the crowded metro.

“I think I got away safe today.” He pressed his back to the wall of the metro, stretching his neck tall to see over the heads of the crowd. “Did you call just to tell me this?” The other boy was obviously annoyed at the caller.

“No, definitely not,” Jonghyun apologized to his friend, “I think I am going to cheat with the homework.” He started to whisper into the phone, fearing that people on the metro would somehow judge him.

“Cheat, how?” The sound of Minhyuns mattress creaking could be heard in the background of the call, as he sat up in bed with interest.

“I’ll just pay some poor bastard to do my part with Dongho instead, so I don’t have to interact with the guy myself until the presentation date.” Jonghyun found a spot on the metro where he could squeeze in standing.

“And who the heck would wanna do that?” He got a rather snappy response, “Well, I was thinking, since you know, we are like good friends.”

“Jonghyun, no I am absolutely not doing that. And besides I am sick, I am not even going to be at school today.” Minhyun whined across the line and Jonghyun started to panic, “Not coming to school? You can’t just leave me like this.”

As soon as the bus moved, Jonghyun clutched to his phone yanking forwards hearing his friend lashing out on him in the distance. Up to now, Jonghyum had been staring at the ground the whole time, but when he looked up he realized how stuffed the metro had actually become. There were red threads everywhere, wrapped around every person forming a giant web of red. Jonghyun could feel the color sting his eyes.

“You need to get yourself together, Jonghyun.” The boy sat the phone back to his ear only catching the tail end of Hwangs rant, “I’m doing this for you just once.”

Jonghyun blinked in place almost unable to hear his friends voice in his head from the nauseating bright color filling his vision. Minhyun didn’t even get to finish his next sentence before he had already been silenced by the press of Jonghyuns finger on the screen.

Hearing a familiar voice in the far distance of the metro, Dongho pulled one of his earbuds to better look for the source of that voice, only to find Jonghyun standing just meters away from him. He concluded that he seriously had the shittiest luck ever, and plugged the earbud back in. However, his eyes kept shooting to his gloomy classmate acting strange and wobbly. 

Jonghyun slid the phone into the pocket of his jacket, pressing the back of his palm to his face to avoid looking at the colorful strings gathering around his limbs, he had been starting to feel claustrophobic.

Just then he saw a pair of sneakers step in front of him, a bad feeling kicked him into his gut before he looked up. There he was, his ultimate nemesis, Kang Dongho. 

“Hey, stalker.” He spoke low, “Are you okay?”

Jonghyun did in fact feel like he was just about to puke, but now even more so since this guy had showed up. He jolted almost doing so, as Dongho had bounced forward, making Jonghyuns back fall into the wall of the metro, and like pillar, Dongho stood in his way, arms stretched above grasping a leaning handle.

“Your eyes hurt from the crowd right?” Dongho looked down at the dark haired boy, sunken against the wall. “No, I am fine.” He flashed his helper an awkward smile trying to arch his shoulder away from the wall.

Jonghyun could not see the sea of strings anymore with Dongho blocking his view, only his own, which was arguably much worse, “It’s alright, you don’t have to worry. I’ll be okay.”

“Who said I’m worried for you punk?” Dongho snort, acting like he was offended by such a crude accusation. The two males angrily stared at each other, for just long enough for it to turn awkward.

Dongho cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak, before Jonghyun purposely cut in, “—Because of the homework.”

“Yeah,” Dongho rushed to agree, “Don’t want you to get sick and go MIA on me.”

“Right.” Jonghyun tried not to read too hard into this random act of kindness, before it dawned on him by itself, the jerk was just paying back for Jonghyun helping him earlier. Now he felt like such an idiot and wished that he had never done that.

“Is it getting worse?” Dongho widened his eyes to the ill boy wincing at his own stupidity. “Yeah, I think I’ll just get off the next station.” Jonghyun lied, sliding past his classmate, not before bumping into his shoulder first.

Dongho bit his lip, pretending that the hit didn’t matter to him, trying to play it off proud as Jonghyun had yet again fled from him. Dongho whipped his head to the exit doors, bitter that the guy still probably thought he was some hot stuff, treating Dongho like he was merely a hurdle in his way, when he was only trying to be nicer.

 

Minhyuns sneeze was so loud that people passing him in the hallway would walk around him with a curve. He pulled his face out of his elbow, clicking his tongue and whining at how seemingly wet the fabric of his shirt had become.

Jonghyun didn’t even notice how badly his friend had been infected until he had already thrown himself on the next seat beside him, “Woah, what is up with you?” Jonghyun glared at the his friend in horror, his nose as red as a clown. 

Minhyun sniffled, “I am sick, I told you.”

“Well if you were that sick, then why didn’t you just say so?” Jonghyun shrugged, giving Hwang the sudden urge to yell at the top of his lungs. Instead Minhyun became distracted to sniffle again, “So anyway, how’s your little problem?” 

Jonghyun sighed, “I keep running into that guy, it’s ridiculous.”

“Until those dumb scissors are done, we have to come up with something to stop him for now.” Jonghyun shared his plan to Minhyun, who obediently nodded, trying to disregard the fact that his friend had for some reason said the word – we.

Suddenly another figure came to join their seat, squeezing both boys further down the bench. Also acting just as unfazed by Minhyuns virus.

“Eunwoo?” Both male students were surprised to see their female college friend sit with them, usually she never sat with them outside of the cafeteria area.

Eunwoo sat nice and proper with her back straight and legs in a confident cross, looking straight forward, as if she hadn’t even noticed the two guys yet.

“Wah! Goodness, what’s wrong with you?” She jumped as soon as she saw Minhyuns prominent clown nose. The tall male sighed, getting up from his seat to switch sides with Jonghyun, away from such mockery.

“Soo,” Jonghyun blinked at his female friend, trying to figure out her mood by reading her troubled expression. “What’s up with you?”

Only after a long pout, Eunwoo finally clicked her heels, turning to face the two boys seated together, “So there’s this guy I like, right?”

“Oh, here we go again.” Jonghyun sulked his shoulders, already knowing what this is going to be. Minhyun pounced his chin over his friends shoulder in curiosity, “Who, Who? We need names!”

“I’ve no idea! He goes to your classes. This super handsome guy with, with the best behind in all of school.” Eunwoo shyly folded a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

Minhyun connected his brows confused, “You aren’t talking about me right?” 

“Of course not, literally everyone knows you’re as flat as a washboard.” She snapped at him.

“Well personally, I wouldn’t say everyone knows that.” Minhyun forced a smile, desperately trying to point his eyes at the clueless Jonghyun in front of him. Therefore, Eunwoo immediately turned to speak to the other male. “Wait, he hasn’t told you about his parties from the first semester?”

“I think that’s enough, Eunwoo.” Minhyun reached his hand to place it over the girls mouth, but before he could reach a thing popped it’s head out of her hand bag to snarl at Hwang.

“Oh, sorry about that.” She clutched her bag closer to her lap, revealing a tiny dog hiding in her bag, “He doesn’t bite unless you touch him.” The two boys decided not to call her out, but the teeth of that thing looked vicious.

Just then, her eyes shot up, “Oh, that’s the guy! Right there.” She pointed to three boys standing around a vending machine, as if they were going to bully it.

Minhyun extended his neck, and saw his two classmates, Aaron and Mingi, eagerly beating up a machine that had just swallowed their coins, as the third person was getting his sleeve rolled to shove an arm up the machine himself.

“Kang Dongho?” Minhyun looked back at Eunwoo in disbelief, “Yeah, that’s the name!” She slapped her knee finally remembering.

Minhyun faked a smile, his pupils racing in between her and Jonghyun, “Well, this is going to be awkward.” The male slid himself away from his friends, drawing a huge distance in order to become the least involved.

“Minhyun,” Jonghyun suddenly assembled the puzzle in his head, figuring that this was his chance to do something to distract Dongho for now. 

“Huh? W-what?” The tall boy acted surprised to hear his own name get called out in a dangerous situation like this.

Minhyun followed Jonghyuns eyes pointing at Eunwoo and the idea seemed to click. The two dudes were going to play cupid for their female friend, and set her up with Dongho, so Jonghyun could get away for the time being.

 

Dongho was scratching the back of his head, looking around him and back into the screen of his phone confused. Jonghyun had texted him, telling him to meet. The guy had never sent texts before, and to be honest, it did made Dongho a little excited. But after he had been standing by himself outside of the school for a while, Dongho had finally came to realize that this had been just a cruel prank.

He wanted to curse out loud, but held his tongue detecting the clicks of high heels stop right in front of him. Dongho raised his eyes to an awfully awkward Eunwoo, hand trembling while clutched into the strap of her purse. She was seriously going to kill the bastards that had so viciously talked her into this.

Meanwhile, the two cupids hid behind a signboard in the far distance, watching the meeting go down. Jonghyun had his eyes peeled on the two, nervously fiddling his thumbs, while Minhyun was just trying his best to hold in his next sneeze. Just as Minhyun began to hinge open his jaw, Jonghyun hushed him, pointing out progress.

The two were talking with each other, perhaps Eunwoo was already making moves by asking the guy for his number, now all Dongho had to do was to give his answer. Instead of what they had expected, Dongho had suddenly squealed at the bag in the girls possession, reaching in to take out her puppy and put it on the floor. He became totally distracted, the plan was failing.

Eunwoo looked confused, seeing the man completely ignore her and instead play with her dog, and neither Minhyun watching from behind his cover could figure out what had just happened, until he heard Jonghyun whine. 

The short boy retreated behind the signboard in defeat, “I am so stupid, how could I freaking forget.” Jonghyun looked like he was about to shed tears at Minhyun.

“Forget what?” The tall boy whispered, watching his friend flap his limbs in clear suffering, “His thread is connected to me, and I’m a guy.”

“Yeah, so?” The tallest was confused regardless, “Minhyun, he is into men.” He supposed that did make more sense, “Ah.”

But right in that moment, Jonghyun wouldn’t stop staring at Minhyun for some reason, in fact his eyes had been glued to his dear friend for so long, that the sick boy now began to worry. Jonghyun suddenly stood up to his feet, and it all became too clear for Minhyun, “Oh, no.”

Dongho shot his eyes away from the puppy, hearing two familiar voices in near distance arguing loudly with one another. “Jonghyun, you can’t do this to me! We are friends, I’ve done so much for you!” 

Minhyun fought against Jonghyun trying to steer him towards the other pair without getting noticed, but by now it was already far too late. And the next second, realizing that they had been spotted, the two clumsily ran for the hills.

 

Pinky sat idle at the cash counter of her store, mindlessly painting her fingernails waiting for a customer. Indeed, in that very moment the welcoming jingle at the door invited in a customer.

She didn’t bother to peel her eyes away from her nails, giving Jonghyun only a small glance, “Yo.”

“Hey.” He let himself sit down and tilted his head backwards for a loud sigh. The shopkeeper dipped her brush back into the tub of nail polish, and walked over to the gloomy man.

“Customer, this isn’t a café.” She grinned at the boy in grief. “Yeah I know, I wanted to see how far you’ve gotten with the scissors.”

Pinky threw him a mean pout, “What makes you think you can come here to rush me, I have other customers too ya’ know?” She shot her chin pointing at the empty store of hers. “Right.” Jonghyun was too tired to argue.

“Anything else?” She spoke in a put on kind voice, one that made it clear to Jonghyun that he was not wanted here unless he was buying.

“Jonghyun raised his chin, giving a quick glance at the shop displays with much disinterest shown on his face. He curled his lips into a wobbly line, before responding, “You got anything for headaches?”

“Thanks.” The boy made a tiny bow in his seat as a glass of water had been passively aggressively shoved down on the table in front of him the very next moment.

The shop keeper lowered back into her seat, “So who’s your unlucky bride?” She leaned back in her chair to review her nails.

“It’s going to be someone who I don’t want to be with.” Jonghyun peeled the cup from his lips and shrugged, but the interest of the witch only grew more, “How would you know who your soul mate is anyways? Did a fortune teller give you a name of someone you hate?”

Jonghyun bit his lip hesitating to tell. His whole life people either didn’t believe him and made fun of him, or found him creepy and cursed. So far Minhyun had been the only one who actually believed him, but at the same time, that idiot would fall for anything.

He winced before finally ungluing his sealed lips, “I can see the threads, the red strings of fate.” The woman focused her vision away from her fingers and back to Jonghyun, holding back a small chuckle, “Is that so?”

“Then – On my hand, what do you see?” She held up her pale wrist to the boy sitting across, and without a second to think he answered, “You don’t have one.”

Pinky yanked forward in her seat, “Woah! You are good!” She told him, “So tell me, after seeing who your fated soulmate is, why do you choose to cut the thread?”

“I just can’t stand the dude.” Jonghyun spoke in such a bitter tone about his fated, that he made himself feel bad about it. “He used to pick on me as a kid, it was really difficult.” Jonghyun backed himself up.

“Ha,” She shrugged, her lips holding back a meaner laugh, “So, what makes you think the next person you might get tied to is gonna be any better though?”

“I want to choose who I want to be with myself, and not be stuck with some random person the string ties me to.” For the first time boy looked up to face the woman when speaking, “Some people go their whole lives without a soulmate, and they get married and live happily without the string, I want to be like that too.”

It looked like Jonghyun had given this a lot of thought, the eyes of the sighing woman flickered to the boy uneasily rubbing his own wrist the whole time while speaking. “So be it, I guess.” She shook her head, not fully understanding his stance, but not bothered enough to try to convince him otherwise.

“So how exactly do you make the scissors work?” Jonghyuns voice had suddenly gone ten times louder, surprising the woman. “A true craftsman never reveals their secrets!” She winked.

 

Dongho slammed his cafeteria plate down so hard on the table that his two friends almost jumped from their seats in surprise. The male sat down, angry and mumbling to himself, while angrily circling his spoon in the food.

Aaron snickered, poking the elbow of Mingi beside him. The two exchanged glances, while trying not to laugh out loud at Donghos demise. However, the man instantly noticed, and grunt to interrupt them.

“Let me guess,” Mingi spoke like he knew it all, and it made Dongho absolutely livid how right he always was, “You fought with your group mate again?”

“Fought?” Dongho let out a sarcastic laugh, “I don’t know what that guy wants from me, it’s like he has been placed on this earth purely just to ruin my life.”

“Let’s not go that far.” Aaron chuckled, not finding Kangs problem not that serious of an issue.

“Hey, don’t you dare mock me now! That jerk has literally been following me everywhere. He is a total stalker.” Dongho leaned closer to his friends ears, but both of them seemed completely uninterested, the guy was just paranoid, and to be quite frank, it was starting to get on their nerves.

“He texted me earlier, and when I showed up I found him literally sitting in the bushes spying on me like some kind of a perv.” Dongho ranted just to prove he wasn’t upset about nothing. 

“Oh, and there he comes! Just as I mentioned him.” The guy angrily gestured his fist at something behind his two friends and they lazily turned back to look just as Jonghyun had mindlessly walked into the café.

“Holy shit.” Aaron turned to Mingi now convinced by the story, “Ehh—” The other boy shrugged it off as a paranoid coincidence.

“Hey you, stalker! Come sit here!” Dongho slammed his hand on the spot across the table in-between Aaron and Mingi, inviting Jonghyun to come and speak for himself.

“Dude, no!” Aaron angrily whispered to him through gritted teeth, “Why the fuck are you calling him over?”

Jonghyun immediately recognized Donghos form waving his brute arm across the cafeteria hall. Jonghyun stood confused with the plate of food in his hands, not ever expecting to be called to sit at their table. But Dongho looked scary enough to start yelling at him, in fear of getting humiliated by the guy, cautiously he approached the table without protest.

“Get your utensils out, we are going to finish that homework right now, so I finally get rid of you forever.” Dongho returned to his chair, “Sit.”

The mans two loyal friends whined in union as they were made to make space in between them for a stranger that their friend had beef with. Even if they usually had a good laugh over Donghos never ending rivalry with this random guy, they obviously the two did not want to live through this in middle of their meal.

“Can I eat first?” Jonghyun spoke nervously, watching Donghos eyebrow twitch to his question.

“Just eat here.” Dongho let him, not caring too much right now. Jonghyun could rest, it appeared that the guy wasn’t actually as mad as he looked.

Aaron shot discreet a glance at his friend to point out how calm Dongho had suddenly become once Jonghyun had agreed to sit with him, finding it quite interesting. The other noted it too.

An awkward round of silence began when everyone choose eating over talking. Mingi poked his nose up from staring into his plate, an imaginary light bulb appearing bright above his head. The student reached around Jonghyuns back to notify Aaron with a tap on his shoulder, the taller male instructed his other friend to watch him carefully.

Mingi cleared his throat shortly before speaking, “Hey, Jonghyun don’t you usually sit with that other punk, Hwang?” Jonghyun nodded in response, avoiding turning to either one of the men at the table and focusing on just his meal, “He isn’t here, he became sick.”

Mingis eyes instantly darted to Aaron, as if he was now possessing a remote to an explosive in his hand, a button press away from a boom, “Do you miss him when he doesn’t come to school?”

Jonghyun didn’t think too hard to answer, “I guess.” And that bomb had suddenly set off, Dongho snapped too hard, jumping on foot from his chair to roar like a wild boar.

“Do you—like him or something?” The guy stuttered, almost spitting mist from the depths of his throat onto Jonghyun. As if he was scared of the idea of a man liking other men.

This wasn’t quite the reaction the two friends had wanted of him, and Mingi and Aaron had both immediately rolled their eyes at the outburst. It became apparent to Jonghyun that literally everyone at this table already knew Dongho wasn’t straight, everyone except for himself.

Aaron leaned closer to Jonghyun placing a hand over his heart and putting up a face of a friend, “My apologies. You see, Dongho here still hasn’t gotten over the fact that Mingi was his first kiss.”

“Hey!” Mingi slammed his spoon down on the table, “I was had my eyes closed, so that literally doesn’t count.”

“Who the fuck kisses someone with their eyes open, idiot?” Aaron barked back at him letting his mouth hang open in offense.

“I had no idea whom I was doing it with, if I had a choice I’d have much rather had tongued a cushion of needles.” The youngest of them all returned the same bark, making Aaron sulk in regret like a scared puppy, before his angered friend. Mingi was really scary when mad.

Dongho had already just embarrassed with himself enough after such his sloppy rant, so Aarons current teasing did not affect him in the slightest. His eyes darted from his shortest friend to his tallest friend and back, all while he was still angrily chewing.

He swallowed and then spoke, “Ugh, you guys are all so annoying.” Picking up his stuff to leave the table.

“See? He agrees, he was drunk too!” Mingi kept pointing his finger at Dongho, not noticing the guy was fleeing from the scene.

“Catch you later guys.” Dongho glared directly at Jonghyun as he circled the table, and the gloomy boy could swear he felt the time tick away at half speed while it was happening, he felt absolutely threatened.

Mingi finally noticed the now empty seat, “Huh, why did Dongho leave?” The boy looked around, but Aaron could only shrug. 

“Y’all are so annoying!” The shortest mocked Donghos voice, “Nyeh, look at me I’m Dongho and I can’t take a joke.” Mingi almost spit trying to not laugh with the food in his mouth, jokingly reaching for a sharp fork. 

While Jonghyun had not gone anywhere yet, Aaron had quickly swapped his seats to sit directly across from him, the guy leaned in a bit, staring creepily all over him. And Mingi to Jonghyuns right had turned in his seat too, he was now surrounded by Donghos stupid copies.

The two were actively exchanging glances, communicating with smirks like they were part of a hive mind. Jonghyun got chills even imagining it, Donghos followers – all connected telepathically to one another.

“What is it?” Jonghyun leaned further away from Mingi, who’s breath he could feel against his very cheek. The other man distanced away as well, growing uninterested quickly. 

“Why do you always bring up what happened at that party, you fool.” Mingi suddenly remembered, whining at Aaron.

“Chill out, I didn’t mean to throw you under the bus, but that other prick. Besides you know I don’t actually care about that shit, everyone was either drunk and touchy, or drunk and violently sobbing.” The shortest spoke, his pupils suspiciously widening at the latter.

“You guys are probably the wildest guests at most parties, aren’t you?” Jonghyun awkwardly chuckled, reminding the other two that he was still part of the conversation.

“Heh, no Dongho passes out only after a whiff of beer, so we have to take him home early, before he starts to get all fussy.” The shortest brushed under his nose.

“The true legend of those parties was always that one butt-ass naked dude who tried to make out with literally everyone there.” 

He looked to Mingi, “Do you remember him, sorta looks just like that Hwang guy?” Aaron tried to point at him before remembering he was meant to be sick or something.

 

Dongho had made it home to his room, tossing his book bag away into the room in anger. For some reason that Jonghyun guy just irked him. It was so frustrating even to just looked at him these days, and what made him the most angry is the fact he didn’t know why.

Dongho threw a dart at the dart board hitting near bulls eye just so he could imagine it being Jonghyuns carefree smiling face, and immediately felt better after doing so.

“Shit.” He hissed, covering his own mouth realizing something odd. 

It wasn’t the sharp end of the dart to Jonghyuns face that had made him calmer, it was him picturing Jonghyun standing in his room.

Dongho shook his head back and forth, like a dog trying to get wet out of his ears. But with no luck, the guy was glued in his brain. Dongho sat down on the edge of his bed to think, perhaps he was starting to become ill, he must be hallucinating, he concluded.

There was no possible explanation for that guy to summon any type of good feelings, yet Dongho felt jittery, tingly after a while the more he thought it over. He was totally starting to feel things, maybe he had been for a while, but he had previously confused them for envy or jealousy. He now wanted to be his friend.

It made no sense though, Jonghyun – why him. The guy was an absolute loser, an idiot and an anime fan. He literally had no redeeming qualities at all. Dongho angrily decided that he will forget about this, its was just going to pass over as soon as he wakes up, and then he would finally come back to his senses.

Dongho closed his eyes and tried to picture some pleasing imagery, anything at all, but Jonghyun. But all of his attempts had failed him, that guy had clouded his mind to the point Dongho could not see anything else.

He squeezed his eyes harder, fingers clawing at the sheets as he fought to chase that perfect image of the other male. One thing lead to another and he was already in midst of playing out corny scenarios in his head, like what would it feel like if Jonghyun was hugging him right now, cuddling the bigger male like a plush toy. He figured that it was okay to fantasize about something as weird as this, as long as this was only a one time thing.

The next minute, Dongho felt the phone in his front jean pocket suddenly buzz and jumped awake almost then feet. He had been woken up from such a pleasant dream, that he hadn’t even fully exited yet and matter of fact, he could not stop daydreaming even after.

He swiped the screen of his phone to view the caller, and like a curse it was Jonghyun himself. The male didn’t even spare a second before declining the call, so he could return to that sweet dream, as opposed to hear the real Jonghyun scream at him over the phone telling him how much he hates him.

The phone rang again, stubborn punk kept redialing over and over again until finally he heard Donghos tired and deep voice over the line, “This is not really the right time.”

“Oh, now you finally picked up.” Jonghyun ignored him, during this time he had been working on putting together the foundation for their project, “I sent you another draft, and some sources, can you take a look right now?”

Jonghyun waited for a response, but all he got back was a tortured groan, “I really need to hang up now.”

At first the student wanted to scold him, but then more low groans interrupted him from speaking, “Hey, is everything okay?” Jonghyun finally took note of the strange pants he was hearing over the phone.

“Yeah? Yeah. Goodnight.” Dongho abruptly hanged up, prompting Jonghyun to redial one last time, only to be hit with an automated voice telling him the phone is off. Jonghyun was livid, coming to the conclusion that jerk was not caring about their grade, and was just absolutely fucking with him now.

 

The next morning Jonghyun saw Dongho again on his way to school, and figured that the guys bike was probably pretty much toast after the fall. It made him feel somewhat guilty for breaking a other one of his toys, but deep down after all the resentment and years of planned revenge, Jonghyun couldn’t help, but to feel like it was very much deserved.

This time the guy wasn’t shy to plop himself down directly beside Jonghyun at all at the bus station. The gloomy boy wasn’t too scared of being near him either, he was more so annoyed by such an ugly coincidence, that this always keeps happening to him. Dongho considered this a shit luck too, but he had already grown used to his horrible fortune.

“Yo, stalker.” The boy announced himself to Jonghyun, who up to now had been trying to not give Dongho the attention that he craved so much. “Hey, Kang.” Jonghyun barely responded, not even trying to hide his disinterest.

The guy kept quiet for just a bit, and right before Jonghyun was brave enough to bring up their homework, Dongho distracted him with something else.

“Hey, I have never asked you before, but—” Dongho looked his way, showing actual concern, “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

It took Jonghyun a few seconds to realize he was probably speaking about his red thread vision giving him headaches from time to time, like back on the subway.

“Ah, I just can’t handle big crowds of people.” Jonghyun made up a simple lie Dongho would instantly fall for.

“It is not because of— right?” Dongho scanned the face of the other boy, looking for a scar next to his eyebrow. His pupils grew wide finding it still visible up close, and Jonghyun rushed to touch it himself, protectively smiling at the awkward reminder.

Jonghyun and Dongho had fought as kids, whether if they threw words, fists or stones they always needed for someone else to break them up apart, and have them not near one another.

Young would Jonghyun fall hard on his back in the sand, covering before Donghos clenched fist, his front of his shirt torn in battle. The small boy widened his eyes noticing blood spread across the knuckles of his rival. At the same time, his dirtied fingernails felt at the blood trickling down his forehead.

“No, its not.” Jonghyun shrugged, still remembering what happened clear as day, “Are you apologizing for it right now?”

Dongho grinned, “I’ll write you a get well soon card.” Jonghyun sighed, successfully holding back a laugh.

“I actually got a bunch of ugly scars from an accident long time ago too, they had still not faded after years, so I just had them tattooed over.” Dongho added, feeling like he needed to say something to lessen his guilt.

“They bothered you that much?” Jonghyun immediately recognized the large tattoo on the boys forearm. “Of course not, I just wanted to get tattoos and thought I could just place them over.”

While Dongho rolled back just one of his sleeves to review his own ink, Jonghyun was left to wonder, how did so many scars come to be. “What accident?” Jonghyuns voice surprised Dongho, he didn’t even expect he’d get asked about that.

“Slipped under a tire of a moving car and got a concussion, nothing mayor aside for the fact I forgot my own name for a week.” Dongho wiped his nose, rising his eyes to the bus rounding the corner of their street in the distance. The somewhat refreshing conversation was abruptly cut as Dongho raced to acquire a window seat.

Jonghyun got onto the bus right after the other man jumped in to be first. He thought really hard, but he couldn’t remember Dongho getting in an accident before he switched schools, concluding that it must of happened right after he left.

Jonghyun and Dongho had been talking to each other a lot more, in an almost friendly matter. Although Jonghyun would love to get somewhat closer to Dongho, so the guy doesn’t pick on him anymore at least, at the same time he could not let that happen. It was safer for them to remain enemies, that way Jonghyun would still have enough time to get rid of the string. 

Dongho was walking just seven steps behind Jonghyun all the way to school, pretending to mind his own business. Even though, Jonghyun could ckearly feel the mans eyes watching his back and he certainly wasn’t the only one to notice it either. As soon as he appeared at the schools gate, Donghos two friends waiting there began watching and whispering to one another like two blushing schoolgirls.

 

The following day, Dongho had his friends gathered at lunch to speak to them. And only after a load of thinking and time spent in solitude he had finally come to a conclusion he was so ashamed to admit. 

He clawed his fingernails through his hair, before finally pushing himself to speak, “Guys, I think I might like Jonghyun.”

“We know.” His friends said in union, not even surprised. However this response surprised had Dongho instead, “What do you mean – you knew?” He became upset.

Aaron sighed, “Dongho, you are like a child. If you can’t get something you get mad at it.” The description did kinda suit the guy, he didn’t even try to deny it, quietly sitting in shame.

“What do you even like about him?” Aaron spoke up again, becoming curious to no end. And Dongho immediately jumped to answer, as if it had been the most obvious thing in the universe.

He balled up his tiny fist, gripping his folded fingers so hard they trembled, knuckles turning white, “He is just so cute, like a puppy. I just want to protect him.” Dongho hissed in literal anger.

Just then, Jonghyun showed up coming into the classroom from behind of where Dongho was sitting, as if he had been summoned. Aaron and Mingi watched as the boy tripped on his way in the door. The two still had absolutely no clue what exactly Dongho was on about.

“I just want to—” Dongho continued to speak, unaware that the guy he was talking about was right behind of him, “Bite him!” He growled.

Mingi chewed his lips, pointing at the guy running up the steps of the lecture hall to unite with his friend Hwang. Dongho screwed his body all the way around to see Jonghyun sit next to Donghos new found enemy, Minhyun.

The guy was always glued to his friend, always smiling and cracking jokes with Jonghyun. Dongho felt gross watching it. He never cared up until now, but he was envious of the guy. Minhyun was tall, clean and good looking, he was a giant threat.

At one point Minhyun noticed Donghos angry flaming eyes that had been fixed on him for long, but the short boy immediately turned away. Minhyun did not understand why was he given the mean look, as he never had any beef with that guy, but then it eventually dawned upon him, and the tall male shot into a fit of giggles.

“You okay there?” Jonghyun was surprised by Minhyuns outburst, now grinning at him for acting a little funny too.

“I think Dongho might be jealous.” Minhyun leaned in to whisper into his ear, triggering Dongho to snap his bloodshot glare back into their direction, as if he had sensed the skinship from afar.

“Eh?” Jonghyun leaned aside, “He doesn’t even like me.” He shrugged, acting uninterested. 

“But the dude he is looking straight at us.” Jonghyun still kept ignoring his friends plea, not wanting to give the possibility of him being right much thought.

“I just need to hurry up and cut the darn thing.” Jonghyun promised under his breath, causing Minhyun to form an invisible question mark above his head, as he had entirely forgotten about Jonghyuns wish to cut the string. 

Hwang was beginning to feel a little sad for Dongho, who was probably just starting to feel things. This probably would’ve been fun to see it all go down if it were to proceed, but oh well.

 

After class Minhyun went to look for Jonghyun, as the guy had run off somewhere, but found him not far, reading something at the schools bulletin board. 

The tall boy quickened his step, somehow accidentally running shoulders with Dongho, who he did not expect to be just standing around here by himself, his eyes too widening to meet Hwang.

Dongho watched the guy run off without an apology, and took great offense. He predicted that the tall fool was probably judging him for loitering near Jonghyun for no reason, but if only he knew that was definitely not the case, because as a student of this facility, it was his right to stand anywhere on campus he pleased without discrimination.

“Jonghyun!” Minhyun looked a bit too cheery to greet him again, he feared that the guy was going to ask for cash again. “Oh, what’s on the board?” Minhyun read a fresh poster up, that Jonghyun had been staring at for so long.

“They are putting together a student party at some lodge place.” Jonghyun thought it might be interesting to check out, he had never gone to any of those, but according to Aaron and Mingi they sounded like fun.

The smirk on Minhyuns face staring at him from the side now bothered him too much to ignore it, “You alright there?”

“Jonghyun, look who’s behind me.” He whispered, “Dongho is totally looking at you.” Jonghyun frowned to himself, giving in and looking over Minhyuns shoulder to indeed spot Dongho creepily standing by the hallway wall and glaring right at them.

He shuddered, the thought of Dongho liking him even a little bit actually scared him now. It was clear that he was starting to run out of time, but he refused to let himself believe that he himself would ever start liking him back, such a thing was impossible, simply unnatural.

“He’s so jealous!” Minhyun squealed to himself, reaching to cup Jonghyuns grumpy cheeks, “What are you doing Hwang?” The student didn’t shield from it much, already used to his friend was always being this touchy and teasing.

“Trying to see if I can piss him off.” Minhyun grinned purposely pinching his friends cute cheeks, until the other man got fed up.

“Quit it out dude,” The protests only made Minhyun more enticed, “Come on, stop it already.” Jonghyun complained, shooing his friend away.

The tall boy began to laugh at Jonghyuns frowning face, before a weight pushed him from the side, caused him to crash a shoulder into a wall. Terrified, Minhyun looked to his attacker being no one else other Kang Dongho, and he was angry like a bull.

“He said stop.” Dongho grunt.

Jonghyun panicked, rushing to help his friend back up. “Please don’t push him.” He pleaded with Kang, who hadn’t realized he was not actually doing the right thing. “Huh?” He made a surprised sound.

“Are you okay?” Jonghyun looked at Minhyuns scraped elbow, and shot a disappointed stare at Dongho, he had never seen the guy actually get violent unprompted before, this was his first.

Dongho became distraught with himself, realizing he had been too brash, a total idiot. “Ayy, I am fine you guys.” Minhyun nervously cut in between, faking a laugh that faded when he realized that nobody around him saw this as just a clumsy misunderstanding like he did.

“Don’t push him again.” Jonghyun repeated, pulling himself and Minhyun to back away, the two males went to safety while Dongho stood in distress too slow to apologize.

 

Jonghyun felt totally responsible for that incident from earlier, and decided to take the long route to take Minhyun home himself. The guy lived in a different part of the city, which was kinda ideal, because it made it less likely for Dongho to show up to keep ruining everyone’s day.

Jonghyun and his friend walked slow not in much hurry, the road was long so they spent much time in silence. Minhyin looked around with his long neck, taking in the scenery and the last of this good sunshine, before the weather would start to get colder again. Jonghyun smirked looking at him, the guy was so funny even if he didn’t do anything. He quickly looked away straight forward once Hwang had noticed the smile.

“How far have you even gotten with your project through all of this?” Minhyun actually worried that his friend had been too obsessed with the string to even focus on his studies, so Jonghyuns next answer only made him more anxious.

“I’ve got no time. I’ve decided to commit to the gym whenever I can.” Jonghyun cheered himself on.

“Jonghyun you don’t go to gym.” Minhyun had to remind his friend.

“Well, I’m gonna start going now, I need to begin training or something, to defend myself from that raging brute.” Jonghyun looked at his own still puny arms, not being able to imagine ever countering Dongho in such shape.

The tallest laughed at such drastic decision making, “Are you talking about when he shoved me? Ah, he barely even nudged me. I only lost my footing since I am so frail.” He swore, placing hand on heart.

“Then come join me at the gym.” Jonghyun looked at him all serious, before breaking into a cunning smile. Minhyun was horrified, he had never worked out in his life by choice, and having Jonghyun in his life meant that he didn’t have a choice this time either.

 

“So Minhyun and Jonghyun go to the gym together.” Mingi sat down at lunch, uninterested with his own intel. A few days had passed since.

“Gym where, which gym?” Dongho blew up with questions only causing his friend to frown, “You can’t keep forcing me to play your spy, just go and stalk them yourself.”

“Psh.” He leaned back, crossing his arms, “I’m not some kind of a stalker.” Mingis eyes twitched in place, wishing to roll back into the back of his skull and switch off.

“What are you gonna do with Jonghyun at the gym anyway?” The boy casually asked, not expecting Aaron to snicker at him like a joke.

“You’re so naïve. Dongho wants to see Jonghyun working out and lifting steel.” Aaron threw his smirk over to the guy in question, who immediately turned flustered at such a notion.

“Wah, no I don’t!” He proclaimed, yet nobody would not believe the poor boy, a grin had gradually infected Mingis face as well.

“Don’t worry, we got you brother.” The shortest gave Dongho this strange, scary look that did quite the opposite.

“Guys,” Dongho started to look a bit more serious, “Should I just say fuck it, and confess to him?” He had somehow made Mingi laugh, but he quickly silenced himself pretending he had never done it.

“Shit, I mean, sure go ahead, but—” Aaron began to slow his words and it seemed like the longer it took him to finish his train of thought the more lines of worry had grown across Donghos forehead, “But?” The man pressed him to continue.

Aaron sighed, his voice up next was filled with uneasiness, “I don’t think he’s gonna like you back. I mean don’t get me wrong, you’re a halfway decent guy, but that kid fucking hates you Dongho.”

The short male began to speak quicker to back himself up, “You almost fractured his frontal bone in elementary.” 

“He started it.” The guy angrily murmured under his lip, “I’m going to try anyway, gonna tell him whether he like it or not.” He had proudly announced, fully confident in himself, even though his friends considered him pretty much deluded at this point.

“Right, the next student drinking party is going to happen soon, just wait till he is wasted and he might actually consider you then.” Mingi chuckled to himself, only prompting Dongho to ball up his fists.

 

“Aargh!” Minhyun yelled all the way across the entire gym room, trying to lift a heavy weight. “Dude, put that down.” His immediately friend scolded him for even trying.

Minhyun didn’t feel like working out at all, he even had to buy himself gym attire just for this, because he had never worked out till he sweat in his life. However, Jonghyun seemed quite determined, wearing something sleeveless for a change, working hard at an arm pressing machine Minhyun didn’t even know the name of.

Jonghyun grunt with his every flex. “Hey, cool off you are gonna break something.” Minhyun warned him, filling the mans ears with his laughter.

“Isn’t this like your 8th break within the past half an hour?” Jonghyun raised his eyebrow, sweat dripping down his face, while the other boy had been dry this whole time. Minhyun moved his lips and swallowed, eyes wandering off somewhere after being so called out.

Jonghyun sighed watching his friend sit down again, completely giving up for good this time, but Minhyun just returned the frown with a wide smile, pretending to be too innocent.

“So, any updates on your scissors being made?” His question made Jonghyun flex his arms twice the speed. “They are almost done, just have to wait a few more days.”

“That’s a relief.” Minhyun smiled at the ground happy for his friend. 

Suddenly his phone chimed off, the tall boy jumped to reach into his pocket, but looking at his phone there were no alerts. This was strange, Jonghyuns phone was off in his bag, but Mimhyun could swear he had heard it.

Meanwhile, unknowingly to the pair, the two friends of Dongho were sitting glued together, hiding behind machinery in the way of the same gym. Sneaking from place to place behind Jonghyuns back like they were exploring a guarded temple.

Mingi furiously typed at his phone, sending his friend Dongho a row of audio files via text. Each time Jonghyun started making sounds of struggle lifting weights, he had his mic ready. The two deviants were so confident in their task, they had been clueless to notice Minhyun sneak up from behind them.

“Oh! What are these two doing here?” 

Minhyun leaned over the rack of dumbbells to discover Mingi and Aaron hiding behind it, holding a phone high above their heads like some kind of a beacon.

“Ah, its not for us! Its for Dongho!” Aaron began to plead his innocence, as if this wasn’t his idea in the first place. “What is?” Jonghyuns voice called from behind the rack, Mingi seriously wanted to smack Aaron for ever opening that silly mouth of his.

“Wait, were you guys spying on us?” The tall boy grinned, only to prompt the two to quickly roll out, sneaking away from the gym room still crouched down to avoid the shame of meeting eyes with Jonghyun right after they had been caught doing something so indecent.

Jonghyun and Minhyun both looked to one another and shrugged their shoulders, they had no clue what had just happened at all.

 

Dongho tapped his pen back at home, brainstorming through the documents Jonghyun had prepared and they did not at all match with his own. It was impossible to combine this or even put it all together. And as the deadline approached just around the corner, Dongho realized he must take the matters into his own hands. Jonghyun was most likely not going to be a big help, probably too busy with watching animes and playing video games or whatever, instead of studying.

It would be so much easier if Dongho could just take Jonghyun hostage and have the two of them sit down and finish it in one room. But he was too proud to ask for it, besides Jonghyun hated his guts, so what would even be the point of trying.

His phone buzzed somewhere on the table under the balled up notes and all the literature stacking the table. Uninterested by his own work he lazily reached to unlock his phone, opening Mingis voice messages without second thought. 

His pupils shrunk to nothing, and face went as pale as a ghost. Dongho had decided that day, he was going to kill his two dumb best friends.

 

Jonghyun plopped his head onto his pillow, tired of work for the night. All of his muscles were completely sore and it seemed like his left ear was still ringing from Minhyuns constant complaining. But he considered that it had been worth it, if it was true that Dongho liked him, then Jonghyun much rather be safe than sorry and train in self defense.

He rolled over in bed thinking, Dongho would never lay his hands on him, but who knows, maybe one day the big guy will finally snap and pull him into a hug, breaking Jonghyuns fragile spine upon impact.

It wasn’t too late for him to text that guy and ask about how the homework was going for him, or if he had any idea why his two friends were lurking about. Jonghyun decided to risk it by saving up all of his courage, but five minutes had passed and Dongho still hadn’t even read it yet.

Jonghyun grew more worried for his schoolwork, and decided to press his project partner by calling instead. And after a couple of declined calls he understood what the hell was going on, the prick was ignoring him.

He redialed at least ten times, before his rival finally had given up to answer the call, opening up with a tiny and sleepy growl before falling quiet again, Jonghyun didn’t care about the silence on the other line and he began to speak.

“Hey, I just thought of something to add, so stop writing and just give me your draft. I’ll fix it.” He expected a confirmation, but alas, the silence prevailed.

He spoke again, after a brief moment of trying to hear out the ambient noises coming from the other side of the call, “You there?”

“Jonghyun—” The boy was interrupted by a ghostly whimper. He stopped to listen again, but couldn’t make out the sound, “Um, what?”

“N-nothing.” The other voice stuttered. “Well, as I was saying—" Jonghyun continued anyways, until the boys voice called him again.

“Ah, Jonghyun.” He groaned, further away from the microphone. 

“Is he—dreaming?” Jonghyun spoke to himself, realizing the small snores in the background. Dongho probably thought this was part of his dream.

“Uhh, you seem busy, I’ll call you later okay?” Jonghyun rushed to finish the conversation, yet Dongho started to speak in a panicked tone.

“No wait, I need to hear your voice more.” He begged for not long before Jonghyun had killed the line, throwing curses at his phone.

 

A new morning came and luckily it was a school-free weekend day, meaning Jonghyun could finally afford to stay in his bed curled up into a ball, blanket over his head hiding away from civilization in comfort of his own home. 

He woke up cringing to himself, remembering when he had called Dongho at the wrong time yesterday, his shit luck was indeed his worst enemy. The way he was speaking to Jonghyun in his sleep convinced Jonghyun of the grim reality, the guy was totally into him, so now he was probably going to confess to him eventually, Jonghyun could feel it in his fragile bones.

The sleepy male had heard rustling and footsteps inside of his room, he kicked the blankets off himself in terror fearing the groaning ghost of Dongho himself had come to haunt him. But his eyes grew wider instead finding Minhyun in his room, happily going through his stuff.

“Dude, you haven’t even started packing yet!” Minhyun scolded his friend, who was still blinking his eyes open and closed hoping that the man would just disappear, “Minhyun, what the hell are you doing in my house?”

His friend nervously scrolled his eyes from left to right and back, “Your parents let me come in?”

“Holy shit, do you really have no other friends?” Jonghyun sat up in his bed trying to look for any dignity left on the face of the tall male.

Minhyun held back a sad whimper and corrected himself, “I’m here to help you pack up for the party.” Jonghyun didn’t have a clue what this punk was on about, “What party? Why are you packing up my clothes?”

Minhyun grinned, hoping Jonghyun would remember, “The class trip to our summer retreat, the one over the weekend. This weekend?”

Jonghyun stared right into his eyes, his jaw handing stupid wide and shook his head. “I told them you are going too.” Minhyun forced himself to smile harder, only now realizing that perhaps he had made some miscalculations by not informing Jonghyun sooner.

“Why, you absolute idiot?” Jonghyun whined so loud that his family could probably hear him. “But you looked excited about the announcement at the bulletin board, so I thought you wanted to go!”

“Yeah, but Dongho is probably gonna be there too!” Jonghyun wailed his arms tied up in his blanket like an annoyed child.

“Hey, you cant keep running from the guy all the time. Its getting ridiculous.” Minhyun gave him a hard stare and continued to motherly fold his underwear into the suitcase.

“I am seriously starting to hate you, Hwang.” Jonghyun said out loud, pointing a throbbing finger at the now chuckling male.

Jonghyun gave up fighting and began to wake up, but as he had made his own bed he noticed that he had gotten a text from Pinky overnight. Jonghyun jumped in place reading contents of the message, and Minhyun stopped loading up the bags to give the alerted man his attention, “What is it now?”

“Minhyun, I can’t go! The scissors are done!” He panicked, running to Minhyun to stop him from putting any more of his wearable outdoor clothes into the suitcase.

“Jonghyun just, calm down for like two minutes.” The tall boy snapped, he finally had enough. “You are so obsessed with this red string nonsense, it’s literally freaking me out.”

Jonghyun raised from the floor deciding that if Minhyun wasn’t going to give him back his underwear right now he might as well just run all the way out there with his briefs worn inside out and on bare feet.

Minhyun learned to stand and hold weight on Jonghyuns shoulders, his grip so hard it would press the shorter male into the ground like a nail.

“We are going to be gone for literally a day. Nothing is going to happen, so relax.” Minhyun insisted, and after a lot of foot stomping Jonghyun gave in, realizing he was indeed starting to act a little idiotic on his path just to cut ties with Dongho.

 

Jonghyun winced trying to keep his heavy travel bag over one shoulder towards the bus. In the far distance he could already see friends of Dongho excitedly tip toe their way in to snatch the best spots.

The students flooded inside and Jonghyun was amongst them instantly spotting out idiot Hwang sitting at the far end of the bus, cheerfully waving at him, while Mingi sat his feet over the aisle, keeping Jonghyuns friend locked at the very back.

“Sorry Jjuya, they totally kidnapped me!” Minhyun laughed, inviting Jonghyun to sit in the next seat ahead of him, as if the guy had much choice.

“Is that one of your affectionate nicknames you guys have for each other now?” Came the familiar voice of Dongho, who was already grumpy this morning. At least on the bright side, it looked like he had no recollection of their awkward call on the phone the night before this. 

However, on the not so bright side, It looked like the empty seat beside Kang had been strategically freed up just for him. Jonghyun toppled into the given seat, accepting that this was indeed the life he lead.

As the final seats began to fill, the chatter began. Minhyun rest his elbows above Jonghyuns and Donghos headrests to speak, “Do you guys know about the place we are going to? Its quite notorious with students who go there each year.”

“Notorious for what?” Aaron and Mingi leaned in, expecting an adventurous story.

The tall boy cleared his throat, “There is a legend that a beautiful mermaid lives in the lake beside the retreat, called The Mermaid of the lake.”

Mingi immediately dropped back into his seat in disappointment, but the rest decided to give the guy a chance to finish his tale.

“Each year, as a tradition brave male students dive into the deep waters at night, too feel the mermaids loving touch.” He nodded to himself, as if he knew first hand.

“So its just a really lusty chick out in the pond?” Aaron wanted to laugh. “Guess, you could call it that?” Minhyun awkwardly grinned.

“Who the heck would believe such a thing?” Aaron wanted to reach the guy to fight him, and the discussion was quickly broken up. 

“Minhyun just go sit at the back already.” Jonghyuns voice commanded him to return to his seat. Yet not even a minute had passed until he began yapping his mouth once more.

“I can’t believe we are all going on a little field trip together, as friends!” Minhyun popped up again, trying to cheer up the atmosphere of the bus, pushing himself in-between the seats to get to his friends ears again.

“This is like a character development episode of an anime!” Minhyun winked twice at Jonghyun, only to be hit with an emptied water bottle from the other side. “Ow, ow!” He fell somewhere in the back.

“This is exhausting, I really don’t like this.” Mingi slid a sleeping mask down to his chin, complaining about the noise and movement Aaron was causing by throwing his bottles around at people.

Jonghyun hated to ever agree with Mingi, but the guy was right. This was going to be one hell of a long bus trip if everyone here were going to be this annoying. Jonghyun looked to the window seat beside him, Dongho hadn’t said a word, busy looking outside, resting his cheek in his palm.

Jonghyun switched to sit backwards in his seat, looking over to see his friends sitting behind him, catching Minhyun and his female friend Eunwoo in a heated argument.

“Hey,” Jonghyun cut in, receiving only a half assed hi. He immediately noticed the sad frown on her face, “Eh? You being mean to her?” Jonghyun pointed his chin at Minhyun, who laughed in his own defense.

Eunwoo shook her head with a pout, “Is this perhaps because of that guy you were eyeing earlier?” Minhyun started to act coy, secretly shooting lasers to where Dongho sat.

“A guy? Right, I gave up on men a long time ago.” She showed the boy her mean tongue, urging him to get lost. Suddenly Aaron had something to say, he poked his head as far back as he could to make some mocking remark.

“Ya, they wouldn’t let her take that little mole looking dog on the bus.” Eunwoo roared, reaching across his seat to yank his hair, and Jonghyun slid back in his to sit facing forward. 

While the bus drove ahead, Jonghyuns eyes kept randomly returning to Dongho, who was asleep for most of the ride. A feeling of uneasiness tickled at the back of his throat, each time he found himself taking a peek. And even more so as he had unconsciously been doing it progressively more frequently across the whole length of the ride.

He began to fear that he was starting to steal glances not just to make sure the other wasn’t planning on confessing any time soon, but because he wanted to look at Dongho. Regardless, the scissors should be ready as soon as he got back from the one day trip, so that should fix everything.

The window to the outside zoomed past the fields and meadows, and the houses along the roadside became more rare as they traveled distant from the city. Although only he found the mundane blooming green scenery interesting, everyone else on the bus loudly chatting over it, only interested in the destination alone.

 

The students arrived at their summer retreat, a large guest house surrounded by a tree shrouded area and a lake. The party had began soon enough, loud music and drunken laughter erupting from the indoors.

“Alright, your turn to spin!” A female voice announced, instructing drunken students sitting on the floor playing a game of truth and dare.

Donghos tired eyes flickered to the sound of a bottle spinning across the floor, not expecting for it to ever land on him. Surprised, he looked at the others, who had their eyes locked on him. Somehow up till now Dongho had gotten away with not playing the whole night.

“So truth, or dare?” The female voice teased him, without much hesitation he choose the easiest option he had, “Truth.”

A male student groaned, “That’s so boring!” wishing they could make him do risky things like last time, when they had dared him to close his eyes and kiss whoever he found in the room first, which happened to be his very drunk and turned on best friend sitting the closest to him. And for that reason, Dongho swore to never pick anything other to tell the truth.

“So,” The woman who had to give him the question leaned forwards, her pained fingernails spread across the floor, “I haven’t seen you ever dating girls on or off campus, are you one of those boys that just play around?”

“Eh?” Dongho panicked, not knowing how to answer to that. Everyone kinda already expected for him to be a bad boy, judging him purely by his looks. So it would be really weird for him now to reveal he was not like that at all.

“Nah, he is actually really innocent.” A voice in the far back saved him the struggle, “That guy has never even held a girls hand.” Dongho quickly realized he was actually being mocked.

“Whaat? Is that true?” The female student waited for Dongho to speak for himself, but instead everyone watched him stand. “I don’t want to play anymore.”

“Oh, come on dude!” The party of students whined watching Dongho stumble his way out of the room.

Dongho came out of the house all wobbly and jittery for a breath of fresh air. His mind immediately traveled back to Jonghyun, not even for a second he could take that guy of his mind. He decided, he needed to tell him something, or at least talk about it before it starts to eat him alive.

He walked away from the crowds, looking for Jonghyun for a long time until he found him sitting on the curb of the sidewalk back at the parking spot, his arm sleeves left rolled up. The gloomy boy looked so lonely by himself, Dongho rushed to join him.

Jonghyun was a little too influenced to react more than to just raise his eyebrow at the unwelcomed guest, a can of beer from had been glued to his fingers.

“You by yourself?” Dongho looked up to the sky where Jonghyun was seen previously looking, a faint moon hovered the clouds of the still bright day sky.

“I don’t like that much noise.” Jonghyun shrugged, finding himself indifferent to the new company. Dongho surprisingly agreed. “How much did you have?” Jonghyun jolted to the main question.

Jonghyun took note of the mans hands nervous, picked red. “A little, I can’t drink too much, I get sleepy.” He spoke.

Jonghyun nodded not having much else to say, it seemed rude to tell the guy to just get up and leave, and it wasn’t like his company bothered Jonghyun that much to the point he wanted to flee. So he let the man sit.

“You know, I like it here, the place is nice, I’d love to come back again one day.” The boy spoke looking around, thick line of trees lead the path back to the house, protecting the two boys from the sinking sun.

“Yeah, I dig it.” Jonghyun tried not to be ignorant, but as long as Dongho sat beside him he could really care less. His mind still locked on getting rid of him.

“Maybe we should do this again sometime, I mean, not the two of us, but the whole crew. Lets go to a beach or a place with a hot spring next time?”

Dongho was starting to overflow with excitement, and when he was like this, Jonghyun couldn’t hold a grin. “I love beaches.” Dongho didn’t realize he had said the last part out loud.

“You are awfully chatty tonight.” Jonghyun stopped smiling for his next sip. “Yeah, Its kinda hard to stop talking once I start.” This time the boy chuckled to himself too.

“Ah, Jonghyun so what kinda girls do you like?” Dongho tried to strike up another conversation, but Jonghyuns gloomy face did not change. He sipped from the can before answering.

“Actually I’m not really into girls, if you know what I mean.” Jonghyun didn’t even stutter, feeling a little too brave now that he knew he was about to get rid of his thread for good.

“Ah.” Dongho patiently nodded to himself, his drunk mind not fully registering the significance of such confession, he instead sat twiddling his thumbs deciding on how to speak for himself.

“The type of girls I like? Girls, well, I like girls – who are girly.” The boy was taking his time and Jonghyun just couldn’t handle it any longer, “Dongho you are gay.”

“Ah, right.” He looked forwards into the distance, nervous smile still on his face, “Is it too obvious?” His grin became forced as he turned back to stare at Jonghyun with desperate eyes.

Jonghyun finally turned his head to give him a grimace, a mean one. “So I am guessing yeah.” Dongho sighed.

The two looked straight ahead for a long time, not exchanging much thought before Jonghyun had started to speak again, or maybe it was the alcohol speaking, he couldn’t tell and it didn’t matter.

“Do you remember when we were kids?” He was speaking in a somber voice. “Of course, we used to fight a lot.” Dongho rushed to speak, say anything at all, just to impress the other student.

“Fight? You were a borderline bully.” Jonghyun turned to him in offense, “You never left me alone, always picked on me.”

Dongho thinned his lips understanding his faults, “I am sorry.” He was suddenly shy to speak, regretting ever hurting the other man, even if they were just kids back then.

“Why?” Jonghyun asked him, but neither of them did remember why, it was such a long time ago.

The shortest boy had an idea, but it was too silly to say out loud right now. There was a much bigger current problem now that needed to be addressed. Dongho felt like it was unavoidable, and since both of them were just slightly drunk enough, perhaps this was his one chance.

“There’s something I want to tell you, Jonghyun.” Donghos fingernails began to click, he actively peeled at them in anxiety.

This made the other man make a pause, he already knew what the guy was going to say. Dongho was absolutely going to confess. And Jonghyun couldn’t let that happen.

“Anyhow, I gotta go back to the house.” Jonghyun spoke in a strict voice, ignoring Donghos desperate eyes, begging for attention.

“Huh?” Dongho panicked, watching the other male sit up, almost as if he was purposely avoiding that very question. Maybe Jonghyun already knew, saw right through him and hated the idea. Dongho was horrified to imagine.

Jonghyun had left his almost emptied can behind, a single trace of his lips dripping down the edge. Dongho snatched it and drank it all up himself, angry with the world.

 

Mingi stumbled out of the building thumping with music to find something to either rest or throw up on. Ahead of him stood a tiny lake, or more like a round pond, surrounded by drooping trees. However, the guy did not have the time nor the interest to awe at the sight of nature, the only thing on his mind was that right now he needed a good place to pass out at, one where the drunk college boys wouldn’t find him to draw phallic imagery on his face while he was knocked out.

The guy stopped his awkward walk noticing a black dot in the distance, he squeezed his eyes harder to see what it was, but everything was just so freaking blurry, he couldn’t see for hell. Suddenly he realized it was a figure of a person slowly walking downhill to the lake, and they looked familiar, Mingi freaked out doing the mental math in his head to remember last time he had seen Aaron. This was insane, that bastard was going to drown by himself.

Mingi clumsily ran head first to stop the irresponsible male, he had to halt him to save his life. The boy held his friend back turning him around by the shoulders, “Aaron! You can’t swim when you’re drunk!” Mingi screamed, dazed and breathless from the small run.

“No dude, I’m not gonna freaking drown. I gotta go see the mermaid of the lake.” Aaron stressed, throwing away his friends grip.

“What?” Mingi yelled back at him louder than necessary, watching his friend undress himself.

“The mermaid of the lake, dude! Like in the story, dudes go into the lake to lose their virginity or something.” Aaron babbled some kind of nonsense. “You are fucking weirding me out dude.” Mingi yelled a little less loud, realizing he will probably need help, someone a little more sober to fish this sorry loser out of the water.

The drunk boys arms tangled in his own shirt before it fell on the ground behind him, and one after the other so were his shoes, until only his shorts were left, as he had neared the edge of the water.

“Oh, come onnn—" Mingi whined seeing his best friends pale naked ass shine away from the shore, knees deep into the water.

Mingi nervously stood on his toes, trying to decide if he should go after the guy himself or not, “Yo! Stay right there! I’m gonna get help, okay?”

“Don’t even bother!” Aaron didn’t even turn back to watch his friend scrape his knees running back up hill to get back to the house.

His body slid further into the water and he began to float, the water was certainly chilly towards the end of the day. Aaron moved closer to legs of a wooden pier thing by the shore, eagerly watching the water, waiting to catch a glimpse of the blushing mermaid.

And not soon after, his eyes popped wide, feeling a warm touch in the cold dark waters, something had slid up his leg. The mermaid was here, calling out to him from underwater, as if it had been waiting for him. Excited, he looked down he saw a human head collect from the darkness under him, breaking the surface of the water to rise tall above Aaron himself.

He gulped, before the stranger, not expecting the sworn mermaid from the legend to look exactly like Hwang Minhyun. 

“M-mermaid of the lake?” He called out the rare creature. Blinking in disbelief, as he was clearly able to see a pair of human feet wobbling underwater instead of the promised fish tail.

The tall boy shushed the other, giggling to himself, he was more drunk than ever, and everything about Aarons face just seemed so silly to him right then. He nodded in confirmation, floating backwards underneath the dark pier, inviting Aaron to follow him.

Distant voices called out the name of the shortest, he tried to look back, but the handsome stranger called Aaron out by his name, making him stare into those pretty ocean deep eyes instead.

Minhyun grinned, sinking further into dark water away from the voices. Absolutely mesmerized by the male, Aaron rushed to swim after him.

 

The next morning after, everyone had to began to pack to return back to the city. Although the day started slow, a bunch of drunk kids still unable to pull themselves out of the bunk beds after a night of partying.

Mingi woke up with a gasp, somewhat only now remembering his last night. He had ran his way back to the house to get help, but his memory just stops there.

He freaked out, trashing in his sheets and ready to run outside to dive head first into the lake for Aaron, but he didn’t even need to go that far. The missing boy laid on his stomach, his undressed body positioned just right to catch the breeze of a mechanical fan that had been making a quiet ticking sound in the room.

Mingi shrieked, “You have red spots all over you, what happened?” Aaron was awake, in stinging pain, “The jellyfish stung me.” He reached behind himself to itch the marks on his back.

“There is no jellyfish in the pond, silly.” Mingi held back his worry, replacing it with judgment and suspicion.

“I said – the jellyfish stung me, Mingi please.” He begged, not wanting share any more details, after he had become sober enough to realize what he had done in that filthy pond.

In the next room over, Jonghyun had already been awake, he stared at the ceiling for a long time, literally counting down seconds in his head before that ugly thread would snap once he got home and his worries would stop. He was starting to feel uneasy, regretful almost to replace something irreplaceable, it was like he was rebelling against the will of the universe by doing it.

He started to sit up, scanning the room for Minhyun, but he had no clue where the guy was, all his stuff still there, but bed neatly folded as if it hadn’t been touched all night.

Jonghyun rubbed his eye noticing a figure of a man at the other end of the bed, his mattress wobbled when he flinched aside, shocked to find Dongho curled up laying at the other end of the bed with his legs sprawled out on the floor.

“Dongho!” Jonghyun worried to shake him awake, only to be met with the stench of spilled booze, “This isn’t your room!” Jonghyun pushed and pulled the groaning body, but it wouldn’t budge.

After few more shakes, the body began to assemble itself and try to sit. “My head hurts so much.” Dongho finally picked himself up, almost leaning directly into Jonghyuns face when speaking. It looked like this defensive, sweaty drunk had been unable to find his way back, so who knows what had bought him into this room instead.

“Jonghyun.” Dongho hiccupped, “I really, really gotta tell you this one thing.” He hiccupped again.

The eyes of the other man filled with panic, and as soon as Dongho moved his lips to speak, Jonghyun placed his palm over his mouth, so instead of the love confession, all that was heard was a nonsensical muffled babble.

Dongho squeezed his eyes shut feeling another wave of headache coming up, slowly collapsing only for Jonghyun to catch him, feeling responsible. Perhaps if he hadn’t left Dongho by himself last night he wouldn’t had gotten this sad and drunk.

Dongho fell asleep head placed on Jonghyuns lap while the other man combed his hair, he instantly felt the headache begin to fade, and each and every one of his pained whimpers became more and more silent, until he ultimately began to snore.

The man looked so calm and peaceful in his sleep, Jonghyun had never seen him like this, not even when they had been kids. The young boy was always hot tempered, mischievous and could never sit still. So somehow watching him finally rest after running around all the time seemed almost pleasing to Jonghyun.

He hadn’t realized for how long he had been staring at Donghos face like this, drawing his sights from the little faint mole at the end of his eyebrow, down his rounded nose and then to his tiny round lips.

Jonghyuns neck snapped up hearing steps at his door, “D-dongho!” Mingi had circled the corner of Jonghyuns room door to bust in looking for his missing friend, only to end his footing at the doorstep.

The sight was so weird, Dongho curled up like a kitten asleep in the lap of the other male. Mingi raised his surprised eyes at Jonghyun, unable to hold his tongue.

“Dude, you got fucking game.” He lowered his voice in amazement and respect for the dark haired male.

Jonghyun began to stutter, “Uhh, wait. He only—!” 

But before Jonghyun could figure out how to explain, Mingi had already moonwalked right back out, silently shutting the door after himself, as if he hadn’t seen anything at all that morning.

 

The bus ride back home was more exhausting than the first one, with no energy left to even complain, only groans and whimpers were shared across the seats of the bus. Minhyun had somehow mysteriously appeared on the bus earlier than the rest, and even he was somehow totally exhausted. Jonghyun never expected for his calm and polite friend to be much of a party guy, but he guessed even someone as neat like him had room for moments of mischief.

All of Jonghyuns other friends were just a sleeping mass of bodies, mushed together and thrown over one another in their seats like nothing in the world didn’t matter anymore to them. Jonghyun appeared to be the only one sober enough to be awake for most of the ride back.

He sat in his previous spot next to the drowsy man, Dongho was starting to look better, perhaps by the time they made it to the city he would be able to bounce back be back to his usual, annoying self, so Jonghyun had to treasure this moment.

Jonghyun realized, that the guy sitting next to him wasn’t actually half as bad as he had originally made him out to be. Dongho was clearly a jerk to him of course, but now it seemed like that was just some kind of a self defense mechanism for a deeper underlying problem or insecurity. The guy was actually really affectionate and clingy, he just was scared of expressing it.

As soon as Jonghyun was to get off this bus, he would go and pick up the scissors as promised. But as soon as the bus began to actually turn into the familiar street names, Jonghyun was hit with a sudden unexplainable feeling of worry. He took a glimpse at Dongho who still wanted to sleep a bit more. Something seemed off about this. But Jonghyun could not pin point what was so wrong.

The man sleeping at the window began to wake up, sensing the warm body beside his move from him, the bus had reached the destination, everyone was getting off.

“Ya’ leaving already?” Dongho spoke in a sleepy mumble, turning his face towards his classmate even though his eyes were shut, “Carry me homee.” He whined, feeling too tired to even walk.

“I’m not going straight home, I got to go somewhere else first.” Jonghyun didn’t know why he was still even speaking to the guy at this point, but at the same time he couldn’t help, but to show his concern for the well being of the man.

Dongho rubbed his eyes, “See you tomorrow then?” His tone was full of trust, and it somehow made Jonghyun feel like a guilty monster. “Yeah.”

 

“Here it is customer!” Pinky handed the promised handcrafted scissors across the counter to Jonghyun, who proceeded to furiously rip through the handmade packaging, much to her demise.

“Wait!” She stopped him right as he was about to rush the cutting, “Are you going to do it now, just like that?” She rode her eyebrows low on her forehead, finding this a bit unethical.

“Do you want it to be ceremonial?” Jonghyun sounded like he was pent up, which probably obviously was the case by this point, he had been waiting to finally do this for ages.

The woman sealed her lips and just let it proceed, her eyes locked on the blades hovering in air ahead of Jonghyuns wrist. Just as the boy was about to make the snip, he started to doubt it himself too and hesitated, which in turn only prompted him to just get it done and over with already.

Pinky jolted, watching the blades of the scissors close, it sent a silent hush over the room, just then Jonghyuns face became paler proving that he had actually done it. The boy was staring at his empty wrist, not feeling much grief or either joy, it was just gone, and Jonghyun felt indifferent.

But at the same time Jonghyun could feel a sudden chill run down his spine, as if something inside of him had moved and changed. His first thought was whether Dongho had felt it too.

 

Jonghyun turned up to school the next day as usual. The sun shined brightly today and birds soared the skies from the lush trees of the campus. Everything seemed normal and nothing was out of place. But even then, he couldn’t swallow the odd feeling of missing something.

He saw two lone friends of Dongho sitting in the class, bored and perhaps still drowsy from the trip, with their leader no where in sight. Jonghyun didn’t fear to approach them by himself this time, surprising them by joining their seat.

Mingi recognized that gloomy puppy face from mile away, nudging Aaron to get off his phone and pay attention, “Oh, hey.” The shortest boy yawned.

Jonghyun was not saying much back, in fact he was trying to, but his lips would just click open only to helplessly close back and forth, as he struggled against the reason of his brain not to ask what he wanted to ask. 

Aaron took note of the hesitation, and answered for him, “If you are looking for Dongho, he isn’t here today. He got some kind of a plaque this morning.” He added, “Said he doesn’t feel too good, has been puking up all over the place back at home or something.”

“Perhaps he is still unwell after all the drinking,” Mingi threw an angry glare at Aaron, “Speaking of which, you were supposed to watch him.”

“Hey now, its not my job to baby sit a grown man. Besides, he had said he wanted to see Jonghyun in private that night.” Aaron now shot lasers with his eyes at the student in front of them nervously breaking into a smile.

 

Dongho coughed and wheezed his way out of the bathroom and back to his bed, and by the time he felt just a slightly bit better to sit up, the dark outside had already gone deep blue. Just like that, an entire day had been wasted in bed. 

After that trip, something now felt wrong with his body, almost like he had become gravely ill from it. He could physically sense it inside of him, feeling of emptiness, as if someone had come into his room with a scalpel and taken something from him in his sleep.

However, his illness had no cause. No way it was just beer from two days ago that was killing him this much. He figured to see a doctor, but not as soon he met with Jonghyun first.

He obviously knew he should put his health first, but if he didn’t ask the guy out soon enough he would just die of heartache instead. In fact he had been feeling this weird throb in this chest ever since Jonghyun had left him on the bus earlier, he couldn’t explain it.

All this time he could only think about Jonghyun, as if the illness had something to do with him. It was driving him insane for how long he had been laying in his bed, with the imagery of drunken Jonghyun piling up in his head.

It had gotten to the point where all he could think of and want was to text him or call him, but at the same time Dongho had hoped that Jonghyun would text him first. He hopelessly waited like a fool for nothing and it made him so sad.

The next morning, although he was still unwell, he came to the bus station to meet the guy in person. See him face to face at least.

He saw the boy there standing under the hooded station, oblivious of Donghos presence only a few dozen of meters away. However, unluckily the bus had just passed Dongho, and the short boy could never run to catch up. He quickened his step only to see the bus take off without him.

Jonghyun looked back by chance back and saw Dongho helplessly stumble back at the station, angry at the driver for leaving him behind. Jonghyun turned away, concluding that the fate must have had finally stopped working the two of them together now that they were no longer connected. Jonghyun sat down in an empty seat, quietly closing his eyes and taking a pretend nap to avoid overthinking it.

That day Dongho felt like he had never been so unlucky in his life. His every attempt to get to school in time was spoiled, and when he got there he could not find Jonghyun no matter how hard he looked. 

He got sent out of his class for bursting in late and looking like he had been in a brawl after running to school all the way on foot. Then he got scolded for sleeping in the hallway. And he had even missed a chance to get some lunch in order to keep looking, only to find out Jonghyun that had gone home early that day.

He seriously could not figure out why, but to him it seemed like the universe was literally against him meeting Jonghyun now.

 

Meanwhile, Jonghyun was now able to rest easy knowing he could go out at any time from now on, without the chance of running into that other man. 

He slipped his heels back into his outdoor shoes and grabbed an umbrella to head outside after the nightfall. Jonghyun was in luck, although it looked like it would pour, it didn’t even actually rain too much, but those dark clouds still drew over in close distance. He made his way to the nearby store, suddenly craving some something to drink, something strong to end the day.

Jonghyun didn’t know what had got into him, the student barely ever put a can of beer to his lips without company. But tonight he had this strange aftertaste in his mouth, one that he couldn’t mend after that cursed trip to the retreat. 

He was filled with regrets, ones he didn’t even wish to think of. Jonghyun just wanted to forget and move on, he had gotten what he wanted, so why did he feel sad.

The somber male carried a full plastic bag out of the corner store, the rain had appeared to have finally caught up with him, so by avoiding all the puddles littering the pavement, he rushed home.

Jonghyun slowed his walking speed noticing that far ahead stood a person. He began to walk even slower in caution, unable to make out the strangers motive to stand drenched under the sky breaking above his head.

“Jonghyun, I found you.” Donghos voice jumped from afar, making the taller boy stall his step entirely. The guy was soaked, out of breath and tired, looking at Jonghyun like the male was his last hope.

The guy caught up to him, leaning forward to support his arms on his aching knees, “I’ve been running after you all day.” Donghos laugh didn’t sound right, it was almost painful, hoarse and dry.

“I’ve no idea why it was so hard to get to you, when we usually keep running into each other all the time.” He looked dazed, his body was leaning and looking to collapse, “Jonghyun, I have something to say.”

The other boys expression became null fearing to hear Donghos late confession just now. It did not matter anymore, the guy could go out and say it, but the string was already cut, they were simply no longer meant to be.

Dongho waited for a reaction, a response, even a small one. But the lack of expression on Jonghyuns face only further horrified him, he didn’t want to be rejected. After all of this, it hadn’t even crossed his mind. If that were to happen now of all times, he would feel devastated, because never in his life had he felt so strongly for someone as he did now. He couldn’t even use words to explain it, something in him literally screamed that Jonghyun was the one.

Without a doubt, if the two boys had been bought together after so many years, then there really must be a reason for it. They were meant to be, or at least those were the signals that Dongho had picked up.

He finally mustered up his courage, yelling over the storm, “Jonghyun,” He squeezed his eyes shut, unable to say a thing while the other man had his eyes glued on him.

“I like you. I really really like you.” Dongho yelled into the rain, but Jonghyun did not even blink. There was a dreadfully long pause, and with each second Dongho felt closer and closer to realizing that a rejection was to come.

“Sorry, but—” Jonghyun finally spoke, his words were faint, “That’s just never going to happen.” 

Jonghyun said what he had to, but still tried to do his best, or at least what seemed like the best way, of hurting the other the least. The other male continued to stand there desperately waiting for anything else to be said, because he didn’t want it to just end it like this. But the two men did not share more words, only a long silence followed.

Jonghyun finally looked away not being able to witness the devastation take over the face of the other man. A wave of self-hatred hit him like a truck. Dongho still liked him, even though the string was gone. 

Jonghyun looked to the mans wrist for proof, a small part of him wished it was somehow still there. Yet his face then twisted in grief and confusion, as a red string piece of string was in still somehow attached to Donghos hand, but it had been torn off at the end – not connected to anyone and just wailing to the wind. 

Jonghyun had somehow messed up his string, he did not know what it meant at all, but he felt disgustingly ashamed and sick to his stomach, knowing it was his fault. 

Jonghyuns foot had moved towards Dongho on its own and lips paused to form his name, yet that sound never left his throat. Jonghyun realized, it was too late to regret, he had already told Dongho what he felt like and there was no way back.

Jonghyun decided to force himself to leave instead, just so these strange thoughts and revelations wouldn’t take over his rational thought.

The umbrella passed Dongho and continued to walk away without looking back. But Kang did not have the guts to do anything to stop the other male now, he figured that this was it, the guy just simply didn’t want to like him back, and he had to respect that choice. But then why did it feel so wrong to him.

Jonghyun shut the doors of his room in sync with the thunder coming from outside, taking the whole bag of beer to his own bedroom. He had an even stronger urge to just down it all down in one night just to erase Doghos face from his mind, but the drinking only had seemingly made it worse. 

The other man had looked so heartbroken, standing there out under the storm. It made Jonghyun so sad that he almost wanted to run right back out and search for him to make sure he had gone home safely.

Up to this point, Jonghyuns hate for him had absolutely blinded him so hard, he had forgotten to even be humane to Dongho, so now he felt like an evil monster for doing what he did, for being a selfish jerk.

Jonghyuns body suddenly decided to jump from his bed against his own intent, but his wobbly drunken legs would only bring him face to face with the floor. His fingers slid across the wet floor, trying to reach a spot for balance, so he could at least sit up. A can of beer was rattling and rolling away somewhere in the distance.

In such a miserable state, he was starting to realize his fear, Donghos confession was no longer one sided. Jonghyun told himself its too late, too late to reconsider it, and he began forcing his brain to just forget about it instead.

 

The school hallways appeared to be thinner of people today after that hard rainfall. Everyone seemed to somehow have gotten sick again and Jonghyun wished he had stayed home today as well. 

The fall had really arrived quickly, stray yellowed leaves stood out from the green, alarming Jonghyun of summers end. He sat by himself near the window awaiting his class, rain and thunder had returned mid-day as if it had come to scold him.

“Jonghyun, what are you doing out here?” A female voice leaned close to his ear, he flinched his neck back straight jumping from Eunwoo for glaring at his miserable face surprisingly up close.

“Are you skipping class?” She mindlessly sat down beside him, soon curiously staring out the same gloomy window to find what the guy had been staring at for so long, turns out he had been so into it, he had forgotten to check the time for his class.

Indeed, he was about fifteen minutes late, time had passed ten times as quickly while he was too busy cursing at himself. “Have you seen Minhyun?” He finally noticed the mans absence, not that he cared much.

“Nope, half of the school is missing.” She shrugged, opening her phone to see what everyone has been up to. “Then have you perhaps seen – Dongho at school today?” Jonghyun tried to pretend as if this didn’t matter to him so much.

Eunwoo snort, remembering her short lived crush on that guy, “Now that you mentioned it, I haven’t.” She suddenly started furiously typing at her phone, “Hang on, let me see if he has posted anything on his accounts.”

Jonghyun raised an eyebrow, he didn’t think of that himself. Although he himself didn’t really use social networking sites that much.

She took her time before reporting, “Woah, he privated everything. Dramatic much?” She showed her screen to Jonghyun, who immediately felt even worse knowing he was responsible. This didn’t sit well with him. Every cell in his body yelling at once about how absolutely wrong this was, he desperately wanted to fix it.

Eunwoo looked back to her phone only looking away once Jonghyun was getting up to leave, “Huh, where are you going?” She called after him, but it was like he couldn’t even hear her, dashing towards the other side of the building.

“Why the hell is everyone acting so weird these days?” She murmured to herself, while simultaneously typing out the same sentence into her phone as her profile update.

Jonghyun ran for the exit of the school, his eyes entirely skipping over the two familiar faces, Donghos two best friends just arriving at school. The two became angered to see Jonghyuns face, and stood in his way to block him from fleeing.

The running boy bounced back hitting right into the closed shoulders of the two other men, he hadn’t even registered their bodies in his path and now he was getting frustrated just to be let past.

“Wait the heck up.” Aaron caught Jonghyun trying to nudge by, gripping tight into his arm. “Jonghyun, I know the two of you hate each other or whatever. But what ever you did or said to Dongho, that wasn’t cool.”

“Is he unwell?” Jonghyun immediately worried.

“I’ve never seen him so devastated and horrified in his life. I really hope you own up to this.” Mingi outright threatened him, glancing away after a long stare. That guy was beginning to feel all emotional after his angry outburst and quickly walked off, before Jonghyun got to see him try to fight off a crying frown last second.

Aaron tore his arm away from him, acting like he was disgusted to even touch the other male, flicking his wrist to the floor. And went to chase his sad friend right away.

 

The store that had sold Jonghyun the scissors had been quiet all day, nobody in their right mind would even go out during such a rain storm, except for a certain someone. Pinky yawned entering her own shop from the back expecting to close it early, instead jumping in surprise catching a customer sitting at the round table by himself. Jonghyun was drenched in water, dripping down from his clothes to the floor.

Pinky winced, shooting a glance under the table cloth to reveal a puddle, however the guy looked so unwell she could not bring herself to cuss him out before asking for his matter.

“Just please don’t tell me that you’ve come here to ask me if I can reattach the string.” Her voice woke Jonghyun from the chaos that was his mind, his eyes instantly meeting hers.

The woman squeezed out one short chuckle, sitting down in front of Jonghyun and staring at him in disbelief, somehow she had guessed it.

“I told you not to pull on a string and hope it untangles itself.” She spoke in a grumpy displeased voice that did not at all comfort Jonghyun, “So you regret it?”

Jonghyun knew this, he didn’t need to be cursed at by another person when he had been already screaming at himself for it all day. He obviously knew that now there wasn’t a way back anymore, no matter how hard he wished he had not done it and just waited a bit to realize that he liked Dongho too.

He lowered his chin to stare at his hands, folded and trembling on top of the table. He returned his gaze to the woman, a silly thought popping into his head. “Perhaps, you don’t sell anything that induces a memory loss right?”

“You are officially banned from ever shopping at my store again.” She clicked her tongue, shaking her head at him, “But tell me, did you experience any side effects?”

Jonghyun glared at her, as if him getting heartbroken wasn’t a side effect evident enough. She rolled her eyes and waved her wrist, “You know what I mean, did you or your soulmate feel ill or something of sorts?”

Jonghyun remembered to mention, “The thread, its missing from my wrist, but it is still on his, even though it doesn’t lead to anyone.”

“What does that mean?” He frantically begged for the woman to explain it. In fact he had seen it before, people with rare loose strings, but he had no idea what they were for.

Pinky puffed her lips pretending to think even though she instantly knew, just to annoy Jonghyun a little bit more, “It means that they lost their one true soulmate, usually by death, but there are other cases.”

It sounded all too scary for Jonghyun to understand, “So what does that mean for him?”

“It means he won’t ever find a new soulmate ever again, you were the one, and now he lost you.” She sighed, feeling pity for the stranger, “You seem lucky enough though.” Her eyes glanced at Jonghyuns wrist, void of a thread until he would one day grew a new one.

“So he won’t ever find someone else, all because of me?” Jonghyun felt his eyes sting, he felt so worthless he just wanted to throw himself into a wall.

Pinky then smacked his hand from tearing holes into her table cloth with his angry claws, “Oh quit it, just because he doesn’t have that pesky string, doesn’t mean he won’t be able to live a happy life.”

Jonghyun disagreed, he knew he had robbed Dongho of something precious and he could never give it back to him. The boy began to tear up and Pinky couldn’t feel more sorry for herself that all of this was happening inside of her tidy establishment.

“We already like each other.” Jonghyun spoke in a shaky voice, that caused the woman to hammer her fist down on the table, “Then date him! What is stopping you?”

Jonghyun slowly raised his head again, his pupils trembling as they fought to focus through his ugly tears. “What if the string comes back leading me to someone else?”

“Jonghyun, that is just life, couples get together and break up all the time. This doesn’t mean you need to avoid love life until you meet the one. Just enjoy your life, you punk.” She stood from her seat gesturing Jonghyun to leave, fed up with him.

“Don’t come back ever again. But remember to rate five stars online!” She cheered as Jonghyun walked himself out the door never to return to the witch, instead wishing he had never met her.

 

Dongho peeked his red wet nose out of his blanket only to accidentally blind himself with the light of his phone screen, he hissed like a cat, before the image on the display stopped burning his eyes enough for him to be able to make out the text.

“Dongho can we talk in person?” Jonghyun had sent him this over an hour ago.

He became angry at his phone, angry at Jonghyun for texting him out of the blue, right after he had dumped him on the street and left him in the cold without a word.

“I’m not finishing the project with you, I can take the grade.” He pressed his thumbs into the screen, and up next hovered the number to block the man. However Jonghyun was quick to counter text him.

“This isn’t about the homework. I want to see you now.” The boys messages were short and abrupt, Dongho could not simply figure out his deal.

“Are you just playing with me?” He sent.

“No.” Jonghyun was already typing up another message right after this one, “Can we meet? We live nearby.”

Dongho felt like a fool for letting him fall for another one of the jerks little tricks, but he was so love-struck he had failed to see the reason and ended up texting his full address to Jonghyun, “Come to my apartment, that way you can’t harass me in my own home.”

Dongho didn’t bother to get dressed or cover up his horrid dark eye bags, he hadn’t even showered once in the past two days, too emotional to even pull himself from bed. He figured that whatever the guy was about to tell him, he would only speak to him through the doorway of his apartment. Donghos family were at home and he didn’t want to make their life harder by showing them his adult childhood nemesis alive and in flesh inside of their house.

He stumbled to the door to open it once he heard loud knocks, Jonghyun was here fast almost like he had ran. The door did not hesitate to open, and now two boys seemed surprised to see each other like this face to face, each one of them looking worse than the other in their own ways.

“What do you want?” Dongho grunt, his voice raspy and out of shape after sleeping for two days straight.

“Is it okay if I step in for a bit?” The guy outside asked, only to be shot down, “No. Tell me what you need and leave.”

Jonghyun gulped, lowering his voice so that nobody, but him and Dongho could hear it, “I want to take back what I said.” Dongho popped his eyes wide at such mention, “You mean—?”

“Yeah, let me go inside.” Jonghyun tried to force the door, but Dongho held it giving him an angry frown, “What makes you think I still care?”

Jonghyun hissed under his breath, he really hated to do this in someone else’s hallway, “I made a mistake, a horrible one I’ll regret for the rest of my life. But more importantly, I like you.” He spat it all out in one go.

Donghos eyes went soft and fingers went numb, while the big guy was stuck in midst of an inner turmoil, Jonghyun used his chance and finally pushed himself in. Once inside, from the corner of his eye Jonghyun saw another person walking out of one of the rooms and froze realizing Donghos family was here too.

“Oh gosh, its Kim Jonghyun.” A younger male called out the two classmates weirdly pressed together in the doorway of his house, “Mom!” He called.

Seeing Donghos sibling caused Jonghyun to experience a whiplash of his earliest childhood memories, the faces of Donghos family members were one thing he remembered very well. Of course they were upset at their eldest son for fighting people and causing trouble at school, but his parents were always nice to child Jonghyun, feeling embarrassed of the misdeeds of their own son.

The next minute Jonghyun found himself in an awkward position of sitting at the dinner table with Dongho and his family. The guy had no problem sitting down still dressed in just his undershirt and shorts, shoulders vulnerable to the cold, in front of his guest. In fact his whole family was cool with it, maybe they saw already Jonghyun as part of their own for the reunion.

Dongho threw him anxious glances from the corner of his eye, the two had been forced to sit side by side as Kangs mother lovingly watched the two reunite after so many years.

“Jonghyun, I had no idea you are now friends with my son.” The older woman chirped, making imaginary ants crawl down both men’s backs.

“Friends, heh.” Dongho chewed on a spoon, before his mother snatched it from him, telling him with her eyes to watch his manners in front of a guest.

“Yeah we, go to the same university together and have similar classes.” Jonghyun felt more loose in the company of Kangs family, he was always quite fond of Donghos mother ever since they were kids.

“Don’t you think you are giving away too much?” Dongho turned to him with an attitude, to which his own mother didn’t take so kindly, staring into her sons eyes with a burning flame. Jonghyun knew if he wasn’t here right now, Dongho would probably get pulled by his ears for this.

“You came quite late, are you planning on staying the night?” The mother worried for Jonghyun, who looked quite beat already on arrival, with the youngest sibling of the family already groaning in protest beside them. 

“No, its fine I just need to discuss something—” Jonghyun couldn’t finish. “Absolutely not.” Dongho cut in ready to kick the guy out on the street already.

“This is my house so you will let him stay for as long as he wants Dongho.” She spoke in the same sharp tone she did back then when he got his parents called to their school, Jonghyun accidentally snickered.

 

Dongho shut his room door gently enough so that his mother would not come back for another lecture, turning around to shoot lasers at Jonghyun who had somehow gotten this far inside of his house. The place was dark, gray paint coated the walls, white and black color scheme ruled the room and the one thing that really stood out from the bedroom on the first glance was the neon lit aquarium, more maintained that anything else here.

“What do you want, Kim?” Dongho began to interrogate him like some kind of a criminal and Jonghyun couldn’t agree more, when the red string hanged aimlessly around Donghos wrist.

“I want to tell you the whole truth, trust me. But you would never even believe me.” Jonghyun wanted to sit down, his knees going wobbly on him from the stress, yet there was nothing for him to lean on.

Dongho barked his voice to stop him, “You don’t know a thing, if I really despised you that much I would have never asked you to come to me with your bullshit, so just spit it out.”

“That is not it Dongho.” Jonghyun pleaded with him, but the man just laughed full of sarcasm, “Then what is it?”

Jonghyun became pent up at his pompous ignorance, “We were soulmates.” 

Dongho tilted his head you the right, “Was that before or after you told me that we were never going to be a thing?”

“You don’t get me, forget about it.” Jonghyun whined and Dongho whined right back. “Then what on earth else do you want from me?”

Jonghyun took a long frustrated breath, “I like you too, I didn’t realize I did only after I turned you down. Like an idiot, I had panicked, because I didn’t think it was even possible for me to like you.” He rambled on and on until the soft voice of the other male broke his rant, “Kim Jonghyun, are you going to ask me out right now?” He had cut right to the chase.

“I guess I am.” Jonghyun wailed his arms to his sides, looking at Donghos face for confirmation, the boy stared at him for a long moment, uncertain to allow it. Jonghyun had toyed with him once already, he was unsure if he should repeat the same mistake twice.

Powerless to think Dongho sat on the edge of his bed to sigh, he could see that Jonghyun could hardly stand too, and yanked his arm to just sit next to him.

Jonghyun sat himself at a polite distance, not sure how to approach any of this. Dongho did not trust him, it was evident all over his gloomy and tired face. Jonghyun just gave his classmate room to think, go over everything bit by bit and form his own opinion.

His fingers grew finicky in his lap, he only wished the man to forgive him. Or at least stop being angry with him for his own sake, and just go back to his old annoying self. He wanted to do anything to undo this massive fuck up.

Dongho began to voice his next thought, a shaky voice trembled over his lips, “You know, I figured that I had a crush on you ever since we were kids. That’s why I always picked on you.” He confessed.

Jonghyun lost his idea to fall into an argument, “That’s not really the right way to get attention of your crush.”

“Give me a break dude. I was just a kid who liked another boy my age. Everyone told me that I could only feel such things for girls, so I had no idea what it was.” He ranted, “I thought I was only envious of you.”

Jonghyun shrugged while internally disagreeing, “I guess.” The fact that he had to be picked on all his childhood just because this kid was too much a coward to admit that he likes him made him annoyed to say the least.

Sensing that Jonghyun was now upset with him, Dongho suddenly moved his tattooed arm to Jonghyun, showing him something. A faint scar was visible underneath all the ink covering it up, the dark haired boy remembered his classmate mention it to him before.

“I got into an accident on the day your parent had came to move you to a different school. That very same road in front of our school.” Dongho rubbed his face in his hand, not feeling like he was any good at explaining things.

He grunt and forced himself to finish, “The thing is, I’ve no idea why the little me ran out onto that road by myself where the cars couldn’t see me. After I woke up I had no recollection of the whole day the incident took place on.”

Jonghyun put the puzzle pieces together in his head, “Did you get hurt while trying to stop me from leaving?” Dongho snort, “Yeah, Maybe I wanted to confess to you before you left.”

Jonghyun went back to sighing and so did Dongho, both dragging their feet on the ground outside of their bed in absolute silence.

Although Dongho had been a bad person to him, Jonghyun figured that the guy also had been carrying heavy baggage ever since his childhood, that had probably molded him to be this way. The guy was regretful about not knowing how to express himself to someone he loved, and then he ended up going his whole life not knowing. Jonghyun did feel a little bad for him, he knew Dongho had a kind heart underneath all of that bottled up frustration and hidden self hatred.

“Jonghyun,” Dongho spoke in a quiet voice, like he was trying to make sure nobody else in the world could hear him, “Can I hold your hand for a bit?”

The other boy grinned in relief, nodding his head half a dozen of times, so Dongho immediately rushed to clamp down on students fingers. His hand felt so warm and soft on top of Jonghyuns.

“What is this for exactly?” Jonghyun felt like the random touch was a bit odd, Dongho replied with something stupid corny, “I just want to see how well my hand fits on top of yours.”

Jonghyun looked to Donghos squeezing fingers and then back at his face, “Is this your weird criteria of deciding whether or not you should date someone?”

Dongho continued to grin at Jonghyuns pale fingers intertwining with his own, they fit together perfectly like a lock. The bigger male raised his chin, “I never actually dated boys before, so the bar is pretty low.”

Suddenly his little reveal made him embarrassed, he had just essentially outted himself to Jonghyun as a total loser. He was unable to escape the shame now, when Jonghyun was leaning his head to follow Donghos avoidant eyes, the shy guy was desperately trying to hide his blushing face. 

“So does this mean, you are accepting my confession?” He poked the bigger guy.

“But,” Dongho interrupted the engagement ceremony, “Are you sure? Are you sure that you really, really, really want to go out with me?” Dongho made it sound like he was about to break into tears and made Jonghyun chuckle.

“I am definitely not sure about it. But one thing is for certain, I undoubtedly want to.” Jonghyun made Dongho pout, but not for long, he began to smile wide again. Nervous fingers itching his own eyebrow.

At this point, Jonghyun didn’t care if this guy was no longer the right one for him, realizing that maybe sometimes it is the wrong ones you need. He laughed to himself, how could this happen, him and Dongho were so different, they literally had nothing in common.

Then the man beside him did something weird, he covered his whole face with his hands and made a sad sound, as if he was going through something agonizing in his mind. But as Jonghyun neared to console him, he realized that wasn’t it. The bastard was squealing in his hands, muffling a cry of joy.

“Are you ok?” Jonghyun blinked, hovering his palm above Donghos shoulder, not knowing how to properly pet him without getting bit.

“No, you idiot.” He yelled into his own fists, so now Jonghyun had no clue what to do, he just awkwardly sat there and watched as Dongho suffered an inner breakdown. Never had Jonghyun expected the big guy to be actually this soft and affectionate, it was now making him somewhat jittery.

“Ah, Jonghyun.” Dongho freed his face of the hands, it was all red and mushy. But strangely Jonghyun didn’t seem to mind, as long as the guy was happy now, he felt happier too.

Jonghyun realized he had been focused on that smile for too long, panicking to himself over making himself look like a total weirdo again. “Its late, I should get going.”

“No! My mum wants you to stay the night!” Dongho clung into Jonghyuns elbow, forbidding him from standing up. The other boy nervously darted his eyes back and forth, “Um, weren’t you really insistent about kicking me out earlier?”

Donghos pupils shrank in fear remembering he had indeed made that promise. However, he did not want to see Jonghyun off anymore, regretting his previous decision.

“You— want me to stay?” Jonghyun widened his eyes to match Dongho, his opponent hesitantly nodded, a tiny begging smile infecting his face.

Jonghyun was surprised himself, finding that his feet really didn’t want to move any more further from Dongho either. Even though they weren’t soulmates anymore, it still felt like it. Jonghyun finally realized that it didn’t matter at all.

“But, you know I really should leave though.” The man had no reason to stay here, plus it was a little weird for him, considering they had both just exposed their gross feelings for one another. Dongho realized that, and even though he was desperate for Jonghyun to stay with him in person, he kept quiet and let go of his arm, avoiding another weird conversation.

Their gazes shifted shy of one another again, Jonghyun began to explore Donghos room up close in silence. Before this he had never imagined how this place even looked like, what Dongho was truly like in his own home. Up until now he had assumed the big guy slept in a red race car bed with cool flames on its sides, the imagery made him laugh and that laugh had attracted Donghos smile.

“Hey, can I look around before I leave?” Jonghyun hopped to his feet, suddenly finding himself mesmerized by every detail of the room. 

Dongho nodded, looking proud to present his home, even though it was messy and he hadn’t even made his bed in a while. Jonghyun totally didn’t mind, he considered it a part of Donghos personality and he respected that. 

He walked to the desk where Dongho studied each day after school, his fingers tracing the old scratch marks on the table, spots of spilled glue and glitter spoke so much of Dongho. Colorful post it notes littered the wall above the desk, every little detail here was so much like him.

One thing that stood out the most was an old picture album stacked in-between other newer books on the shelf. It was worn and stained with dirt, grayed out and peeling stickers lead Jonghyun to believe that the guy had been treasuring this since he was a kid.

Dongho realized what Jonghyun was holding and ran to lift it off his hands, “Um. This is – for my drawings I did as a kid.” He smiled, finding himself embarrassed of his portfolio.

Jonghyun laughed it off, taking the album back and opening it. It was filled with cute crayon scribbles and cute drawings, in no way was the guy an artist, but Jonghyun, not quite an artist himself, believed them to be pretty good.

While flipping pages he stopped at a certain drawing, this one didn’t feel so right. Child Dongho had drawn himself and Jonghyun side by side, a red line drawn with the widest marker was connecting the two children. It was eerie, thinking Dongho had somehow predicted the whole thing.

Without realizing it, Jonghyun had put his finger over it and Dongho laughed remembering himself drawing this.

“Ah, this is embarrassing.” He asked for the album back, “Our teacher told us this story about people who couldn’t be separated, as long as they were held together by a red string. Back then I actually believed it meant something.” He apologized.

“Was this right before I moved away?” Jonghyun watched the male stuff the album back away into the dark shelf. “Yeah.” He nodded. Jonghyun was left a little dazed after this find, Jonghyun decided to stop looking around the room and return sitting on the bed. 

He bounced on the mattress, shaking up Donghos bodily scent soaked into his pillows. Jonghyuns nose became tingly to it, perhaps it wasn’t the best smell, considering the sheets had probably been messy and stretched for days, but it still smelled exactly like Dongho, it was weirdly homely.

“It’s too late, the road back is scary at night.” Jonghyun spoke, causing Dongho to turn to him with a suspicious grimace, wondering why did that just sound so much like a lie to him.

“Oh, yeah. Feel at home.” He nodded, joining sitting beside the other in shy silence, as there was no other place for him to sit. Only now Jonghyun was starting to realize his new predicament that came with him staying the night. “Hey, um. So where do I sleep?”

Dongho also scanned over his own bedroom expecting to see another bed to appear in his bedroom, realizing he was shit out of luck.

“Do we—?” Jonghyun gulped, but Dongho immediately jumped to shout ahead, “No!”

The larger male surprised him by gripping his shoulders and pushing him down on the bed, pressing his puny body deep down into the foam of the mattress. “You sleep here, I’ll just lay on the floor.”

Dongho instructed from above, Jonghyun made a small shocked nod and the other male jumped off from him to gather his pillow outside the bed, immediately pretending he had instantly fallen asleep, silently dying of embarrassment somewhere far away from Jonghyuns judging eyes.

Meanwhile the other male was still stuck in his last position of when Dongho had just hovered above him briefly. Jonghyuns eyes were wide, fixed on the ceiling. His heart was racing so much he felt like he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep the whole night now.

That feeling was secretly mutual. Dongho had curled up on the floor, his every finger and toe folded up into a tight fist. He squeezed his eyes shut, and after a while, he forced himself to sink into a dream. 

His heart felt warm like the spring, like a bright day full of sun. A trail of flowers appeared before him, leading up all the way up a hill as far as the eye could see. Butterflies flied freely from petal to petal on a breezeless day. Donghos sleepy snort was loud in his dark bedroom, Jonghyun had figured that the guy was already deep inside of a pleasant dream, and felt safe enough to shut his own eyes as well.

 

A couple of days had passed, and although Dongho had only informed his friends that him and Jonghyun had only made up, it was getting blatantly obvious that the two had done more than just make up.

The guy was acting cautious and shy, like a lovesick puppy always lost in his own thoughts. His friends had noticed him acting weird all day while he was with them, up until certain classes of his ended, so he abandoned everything to rush to Jonghyun.

The three friends now sat together in the cafeteria as four, unable to unglue Dongho from the other dude. They just accepted to live with it for now, even though Jonghyun wasn’t particularly growing on them that quickly.

Jonghyun closed his notes and sinking spread across the table in defeat, “My hand is literally so tired from handwriting for so long.” Indeed, writing by hand seemed so foreign to him after he had already lived half his life typing on a keyboard. 

Jonghyun shook his limp hand in front of the whole table, prompting Dongho to grab it. The other guy began to twiddle the fingers of his crush in his own palm, trying to soothe his aching joints. Jonghyun didn’t see it as a big deal, but Donghos friends couldn’t help, but to stare in disgust at the gross lovebirds.

Aaron leaned away pretending to gag and along with Mingi they grabbed their plates and fled from the table. Dongho barely even noticed it, too focused on fondling Jonghyuns thin pink fingers, until the other male had snatched them back.

Jonghyun grinned, actually being happy now that they were gone. However, just then another student body plopped down right beside him, folding his hands in front of him, sitting politely with his back straightened.

“Minhyun, you are bugging us.” Jonghyun turned to his long forgotten friend, giving him an annoyed lecture. Minhyun tried not to sound desperate, but still ended up blowing up with complaints, “You can’t exclude me from this. Jonghyun, you know I have no other friends.”

“Well who’s fault is that?” Jonghyun snickered in his friends demise, “No but seriously, you gotta leave.” He instantly switched up his tone. 

Minhyun pretended to throw a tantrum, bobbing his shoulders and pouting across his whole face, until Jonghyun took the matter into his own hands and began to push him away himself by force.

 

Jonghyun and Dongho sat side by side inside of the metro returning them from university, glimpses of low yellow light poked through the windows every few seconds and the train continued to run ahead. Jonghyun was busy playing games on his phone, while Dongho stared in front of himself deep in thought.

The guy realized he hadn’t even kissed Jonghyun yet. Just thinking about it made his knuckles fold themselves into a tight knot, fingernails digging into the edge of his seat. He wasn’t brave enough to ask or do anything to inflict it, the small thought of rejection scared him.

Jonghyun noticed his pondering face and gave him a suspicious grimace. Dongho was anxious to be caught thinking about something like that, as if Jonghyun could somehow read his mind.

The other boy waited till the metro began to stop, and as more people left their cart, he felt comfortable enough to cuddle closer with Dongho, his head finding a good place on Donghos shoulder. His childhood nemesis returned the gesture, leaning his ear on top of Jonghyuns hair.

The walk home had became slower ever since the two had began to accompany one another home. The sun would paint the skies in a pretty orange color, lighting up the tall apartment buildings with a warm yellow glow. And the two of them would got caught up watching the sun set while walking together.

Walking in silence, they even didn’t need to speak anymore, it was like they could somehow understand one another just by reading each others faces. And right now, while Donghos hand kept lightly brushing back and forth against Jonghyuns, needy to catch a moment where he could cup it in his hold, Jonghyun knew that Dongho really, really wanted to kiss him.

Jonghyun paused before the entrance of Donghos apartment building, not wanting to say bye just yet. “Hey, um.” Dongho suddenly avoided looking at his face, feeling his face burn with red already.

“Do you wanna come up and study together?” He swung his arm behind his head, ruffling his own hair in awkwardness.

“Dongho, you hate studying.” Jonghyun thought he had misheard it. “I mean yeah, but I get it done quicker when you are with me, helping me.”

Jonghyun made a coy laugh, feeling tingly on behalf of his boyfriend, “I think its quite the opposite. With me in your room you get no job done.”

Kang opened his mouth to say something in protest, but held his tongue to instead foolishly smile. “Go home Dongho.” Jonghyun spoke in a strict fatherly tone.

Of course, Dongho would refuse to leave without hugging Jonghyun tight first, leaping forwards on the tip of his toes like a leaning tower into Jonghyuns warm hold. The weaker boy struggled holding him all in place, but he didn’t mind the weight. Perhaps, this was a good notion for him to return to gym.

Dongho almost tearfully peeled himself off from his crush, he was like this every time, wanting to hold Jonghyun for longer than necessary. Jonghyun always had known the guy was difficult with expressing affection, he had been absolutely touch starved up until now. Finally letting go of the weight, the oldest giggled to himself, finding it quite funny, now knowing the reason why Dongho had been so desperate for attention from him for all of these years.

The other boy forced himself to turn away and quickly run indoors, otherwise he could stand out here the whole night. But Jonghyun held him back for a bit, “Dongho.” He didn’t let that hand slip away.

Donghos eyes peeled wide as without a warning the other male leaned in to press his lips to his cheek. Suddenly, something inside of Dongho had exploded.

“Woah, are you okay?” Jonghyun hopped backwards, as Dongho had squat to the ground, covering his red face with his hands.

“You bastard.” A muffled voice broke through while he cried hearts from his eyes. Jonghyun squat beside him apologetically patting his spine. He had not expected for Dongho to take something so small like this so dramatically. That was Donghos first real kiss he had ever had.

 

Jonghyun walked to his house slowly thinking about him and his boyfriend, silly thoughts like what their future together would look like kept popping into his head, but it was way too early for that. 

Right now, he still felt had his regrets about that he and Dongho weren’t soulmates anymore. Even thought the bond was invisible, he felt bad for taking it away without thinking, and he hadn’t even told Dongho about it yet. Jonghyun didn’t know what to expect, the guy would probably be heartbroken to know Jonghyun had purposely cut it himself, even if he had changed his mind afterward.

First night stars began to dot the night sky, street light buzzed and blinked above his head where he passed under and neared the familiar row of sky high apartments drawing long leaning shadows down below.

In that moment when his gaze faced the moon, he made a wish. He wished that him and Dongho could be soulmates again. A dark cloud slid over the moon and the light hitting his face had faded. Jonghyun forgot about it, giving up again.

Within the next street ahead, the man had to stumble his step feeling his wrist tickle, he didn’t mind it at first believing that his mind was playing a bad trick, by making him think of a string that was no longer there. But after five more steps, he finally decided to ease his worry and pulled back his sleeve. 

To his tearful relief he saw a red thread, tied around his wrist as if it had never gone anywhere.

His world literally froze, he was confused and lost. But his next thought was that the spell of the scissors had somehow not fully worked. Jonghyun felt ten pounds lighter, like the weight on his heart had lifted. The red thread had totally reappeared out of nowhere. He could not believe it.

Jonghyuns pupils widened seeing the red string tug at his wrist, as if it was pulling him forwards to meet his soulmate nearby. Believing Dongho would be just around the corner, he began to quicken his step and soon started to even run ahead.

 

Minhyun yelled at his friend from afar, “Hey!” before sneezing, “Shoot, why am I still sick.” The guy sat on an lonely swing set, waiting for his friend to walk by.

The tall boy wiped his nose, before looking back up wondering why Jonghyun had stopped running towards him, just eerily standing outside the gate of the playground he had claimed as his own on this rainy day.

Jonghyuns hands twitched into a fist, in horror he faced Minhyun, sitting at the other end of the string. This had to be a cruel joke, his fate must be punishing him by doing this, Jonghyun expected.

The chain of Minhyuns swing stopped making sound, and his feet rustled against the sand beneath his feet to break movement. Jonghyun was approaching him quickly, but his face looked mad, like he was made of evil.

Jonghyun snatched Minhyuns wrist pulling him up from his seat to see the red string up close, taking two steps back when realizing it was the real deal.

“It’s you? What the hell, anyone but you.” He crowded his eyebrows into an angry arch, Minhyun was absolutely clueless, “What’s wrong?”

“The red thread, it has reappeared.” Jonghyun refused to near the other male, taking another step back for safety.

“M-me? Us?” Minhyun pointed at himself in disbelief and it made his friend lose his temper like he was at fault, “Fuck, why did it have to be you?”

He stopped cursing to ask, “You don’t feel anything for me yet, right?”

“Of course not, calm down.” Minhyun took a step forwards trying to figure out a way to help. But the motion made Jonghyun cringe. Minhyuns touch seemed venomous to him now.

“No. I can’t accept this.” He shook his head, still in denial. How could the universe do this to him, and curse him to be fated with Minhyun now that Jonghyun had just realized how much he liked Dongho.

Minhyun forced an anxious smile, he knew his words wouldn’t help, but he still tried to act reasonable, “Jonghyun, maybe this is for the better?”

“No way!” Jonghyun gasped in offense, “Stay the hell away from me!” He cussed at the man, fleeing before Minhyun could address this anymore.

The tall boy ruffled his own hair in confusion, still unsure if Jonghyun was right about the thread. It didn’t make sense, out of all people he had connected to him. But now that he thought about it, Minhyun had no clue why he had walked out so far from home to this playground while sick, just to greet his friend back from school, it was as if something was pushing him to be here.

 

Minhyun sulked at his phone sulking at Jonghyuns online profile, the guy had literally blocked from all ways of contact, and when he asked Eunwoo to text him instead to talk some sense into him, she wouldn’t even budge. The guy was going lengths just not to see him, Jonghyun was starting to even skip some classes, and Hwang felt like this was in no way a long term solution to his problem.

Hwang sat back down by his female friend with a long drawn out sigh, gaining her attention. “What’s that?” Eunwoo point her pinky to the foreign object in Minhyuns hand.

“Ah, I drink coffee whenever I’m stressed.” The boy smiled at his own cup. A worried frown painted the face of his friend, she had no idea this guy could even consume anything that had anything to do with coffee beans.

“You are overreacting, Hwang.” She thinned her lips waving her wrist at the male, surprisingly he agreed. “Am I?” The boy chuckled, but his laugh sounded so pitiful she just couldn’t take this guy seriously today.

Donghos head was barely shown behind the necks of his taller classmates flooding into the building. Minhyun jumped up from his seat almost pushing his female classmate over seeing Dongho enter the hall, and now rushed over to beg him for help as his last resort.

“Hey, Kang!” He grinned, which only made ants crawl down Donghos spine. Kang thought, maybe this guy was Jonghyuns friend, but he was definitely not his friend, and he better not try to be one.

“What is it?” Dongho spoke in annoyed voice. “Woah! Simmer down, no need to hold grudges here.” The tall man laughed trying to brighten up Donghos grumpy face.

“Jonghyun didn’t come to his classes today, and I bet you are going to see him afterwards, so mind if I tag along?” The tall male had developed a genius plan on how to break through to speak with his friend in person. 

“Actually,” Dongho lost the attitude, “Jonghyun told me not to talk with you.”

Minhyuns heart jumped a little, “Did he tell you why?” He figured that this guy might not even know about the red string yet.

“No?” Dongho admitted his boyfriend had been pretty weird about it. But Minhyun definitely knew something, the guy was acting suspicious too.

Minhyun felt pressured to reveal the truth now, especially now that the other male was investigating his expressions with flaming eyes. Minhyun figured that Dongho deserved to know, and besides he had no idea why his friend had not told this guy already.

Anxious, Minhyun reached his elbow behind his head to nervously cup the back of his own neck. “Just tell him – I dunno, just tell him something.” Minhyun gave up his original thought, not wanting to mess things up more than he already has.

“He is mad at me for something and I just want to talk to him again.” The tall male spoke, “I hope I am not giving him a hard time.”

Dongho gave it some thought and nodded, “I’ll try to remember to tell him. But only because you are Jonghyuns friend.” Dongho mumbled something.

“Yeah! I knew I could count on you my man.” The tall boy cheered, barely holding himself from grabbing onto Donghos short shoulders and shaking him in joy.

 

After school (a/n: miss them), Dongho had come to ring at Jonghyuns door announcing his arrival. It didn’t take even a second before the same door had blown open and Jonghyun leaped at him for a desperate and clumsy hug.

Judging by this warm welcome, the guys parents weren’t home at the time, giving Dongho great hopes that he would be to allowed to stay for a sleepover.

“Wah, careful that hurts.” Dongho hissed out of Jonghyuns claws, backing up from the other boy to whine, all while being mocked by Jonghyuns devilish laugh. The mood was good today.

The two moved to Jonghyuns bedroom, it was a little messy at the moment, but he had cleaned before Dongho was set to arrive to set down a good example. 

“You really gotta get rid of those.” Dongho reminded Jonghyun of his room walls, the whole anime nonsense never made much sense to Dongho, he associated drawn animation with kid stuff. Jonghyun became almost aggressive to defend his posters, although Donghos judging scoff had already hurt his little pride.

“What wrong with it?” The owner of the posters crossed his arms, wanting to hear what was this guys point.

“They are ugly.” Dongho didn’t even hesitate to speak the truth, pointing directly at Jonghyuns favorite anime girl, sprawled out on a poster right above Jonghyuns bed. 

“That one is always staring too.” He hopped into the bed to look at it up close even going as far as to touch it, before Jonghyun had stopped his hand in travel. 

“So—, we doing the group project tonight?” Dongho wore a teasing smile, reminding himself and the other male why they should not fight right now.

Jonghyun made a frown, “You changed so many slides I had already written.” He began to scold, only making Kang more aggressively defensive about his proud work, “How am I supposed to present your mess? I only rearranged it!” 

Jonghyun turned quiet, his grimace gradually widening into a sly smirk. Just now he had only been teasing Dongho. His rival blew steam from his nostrils, trying not to throw curses at Jonghyun under his own roof.

Now that Dongho was here, he began to scan his boyfriend from head to toe with a scolding look, the guy was still dressed in pajamas and socks even though it was already past midday.

“So what’s up with you?” Dongho pointed at the lazy prick, “When are going to attend classes normally again? I cant keep telling people you’re sick.” He exposed the other male.

“Who said that I am not sick, you punk? I just don’t feel so well these days.” Jonghyuns explanation was starting to worry Dongho.

He could tell there was something off about Jonghyun, he had been avoidant and distant for a while, Dongho could not figure him out. And now he was even paranoid to step out of his house, this lack of communication was leading Dongho to think that maybe it was his fault.

Jonghyun saw his boyfriends expressions change, almost like he could see right through him. He realized that ever since the two began to go out, he was only falling deeper and deeper for the guy. Yet, that evil string of punishment still tied him to another, and Jonghyun felt like he was living on a borrowed time now. 

Although, right now he could never imagine himself breaking up with Dongho, he knew it was eventually bound to happen. And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Jonghyun had been going back and forth trying to bring himself to explain his powers to Dongho. On one hand, he didn’t want to worry Dongho or worry about it himself and just live out his life the way it turns out. But on the other hand, he was responsible for messing with Donghos fate, it was only right to tell him.

“Hey,” Dongho caught his boyfriend not listening to him, “Yo stalker, you awake?” He joked, but Jonghyun didn’t laugh back.

The gloomy boy began thinking, perhaps it was better to break up sooner, so that way the two would not fall even deeper for each other when they finally have to break up. Jonghyun abandoned that idea instantly, he did not have the face to do it.

Dongho jolted as Jonghyuns arms had out of nowhere suddenly hugged around his wide frame, the other male became small when clinging onto Donghos shoulders. 

The embrace was quiet, calming. But still, Dongho could feel how tense the smaller guy was when holding him. Jonghyun just really needed to hug the big guy right now, so that way he felt less like a jerk for thinking all of these horrible things behind his back.

Automatically, alarms had set off in Donghos mind figuring out that probably something serious was going on, and of course his small mind assumed the worst.

“You aren’t trying to dump me, you punk?” Jonghyun stopped being sad to smile at his boyfriends angry bark, this guy was being just a little dramatic.

“Where did you get that idea?” Jonghyun snort, trying not to smile too hard. “That’s a big relief.” Dongho breathed over his shoulder almost too enthusiastically. 

Just then, Jonghyun had hoped to tell Dongho about the cursed string, however that sad and worried look he had seen across the mans face made him swallow all of his words he had lined himself to say in that very moment. It hurt to much disappoint the guy even just slightly.

“Oh hey, I wanted to ask you about something.” Dongho had just remembered, hopping back to talk, “Did you and Minhyun get into a big fight? He is worried about you—?"

Jonghyun cut him off, his tone had quickly gone unfriendly towards Dongho, “Did Minhyun speak to you?”

Jonghyun waited for his boyfriends answer, but his irrational fear had become so intense, he ended up missing half of it, when it was actually said. 

“You don’t talk to him anymore at all, and the two of you always used to hang out.” The other boy worried.

“Don’t bring him up again, I don’t want to think about him.” Jonghyun shut his eyes trying to get away from the conversation, he feared that even just thinking about Hwang would lead him to stray from Dongho.

Donghos voice insisted, “But you guys used to be such good friends? What did he do?”

Jonghyun wanted for this talk to end, he didn’t want to talk about that other person right now. Nor could he face Dongho and reveal the secret of the red string of fate that connected Jonghyun to another man that was not his boyfriend. 

In heat of the moment, he had said the first distracting thing that came to mind, “Dongho,” He forced himself to stare right into the trembling eyes of the other male. “Can I just kiss you?”

Kang froze, forgetting about all else he had just said. It was like he had been suddenly hit with a pan on top of his head, he felt dazed, confused.

“I—Uhh,” The man stuttered, “Yeah, certainly.” His palm took the shape of a shaky fist and flames starting to pour out of his eyes.

The built male looked almost comical about how determined he was to be kissed today, but Jonghyun could feel the guy was actually unsure. He didn’t want to rush or pressure him that way.

“I’m gonna do it now.” Jonghyun mentally prepared himself. “Okay.” Dongho sounded weirdly high pitched right then.

Donghos eyelashes fluttered in place as Jonghyun had moved close to his face, holding his own in a slight tilt. The two of them hesitated and neither knew how or when to start. Jonghyun was braver than he looked and without thinking, pressed himself forward into Donghos lips. 

“Hang on.” Dongho suddenly spoke, just as Jonghyun was already a breath away from touching his lips.

“What now?” Jonghyun spoke a bit impatiently, or at least that’s how he had sounded like to the nervous Dongho. “Do I open wide?”

“What on earth?” Jonghyun was starting to lean back, so Dongho became even more anxious, he thought that he was losing his chance.

“Jonghyun, wait. I didn’t mean to scare you off.” Dongho apologized, bowing his head and everything, while he then apologized more again and again thereafter. This guy just wanted kisses, that’s all he ever wanted, Jonghyun could clearly tell.

“Then, I’m gonna do it!” Jonghyun bravely announced. “Yeah!” Dongho cheered him on forgetting he was an active participant himself for a second.

Jonghyuns hands squeezed his shoulders this time, Dongho could not run anymore, forcing himself to finally just man up and receive what he still so badly wanted. And when it actually ended up happening, the poor boy became so shocked, he blanked out against the warm softness of his boyfriends lips slide and fold against his own.

Jonghyun mistook the lack of reaction, and instantly pulled away, fearing that he had done it while Dongho was not ready yet or that the man didn’t want him right now. So now Dongho felt like a fool for making Jonghyun worry and misunderstand, he wanted this, clearly.

The bed squeaked under the extra weight pressing down on the same spot of the mattress. Donghos knees had gone far forward, arms clung Jonghyuns sides.

Jonghyun parted his lips for the other male, Dongho took slow and cautious steps almost like he was afraid to mess something up. However Jonghyun could not endure it being this painfully hesitant for too long. His tongue was pressing rough against Donghos, and chin tilted just in the right angle. 

Jonghyun had deepened their embrace even further after they had already been kissing for a good minute, letting out a pleased grunt to make it known that he also had been hungry for this all along.

The two spent long minutes taking slow rounds of kisses until they began to get quicker, more eager and much more messier. That’s where they decided to stop it for now. 

Dongho pulled away embarrassed of his own blushing face, wiping away his reddened lips with his thumb. For his first time, he actually wasn’t that miserable. Jonghyun grinned back, the whole deal had gotten him quite out of breath.

“Woah, my heart is pounding so much right now.” Dongho clutched his own chest, provoking Jonghyun to check his own for the same effect. “Mine is beating more.” The other replied, shocked to feel it pump to his palm.

“No, here feel mine first.” Dongho stole his hand, placing it over his own chest and Jonghyun could feel it too, “Yours is definitely going faster than mine.”

“Right?” Dongho acted so shocked, he began to laugh. Jonghyun didn’t realize he had been smiling looking at the other for so long that far corners of his mouth had began to hurt, yet he couldn’t stop.

“Hey, we should totally like do this again sometime?” Dongho suggested more of this, like it was some kind of sports event for him.

“Actually not just that part, but— I wanna take you out on an actual date and stuff.” The guy clumsily itched the back of his head, smiling at the ground. 

“I mean, not like anything too fancy. An ice cream stand should work, right?” He made the other male laugh, Jonghy actually didn’t care about the location too much, so it was fine by him.

“I just really want ice cream right now. Or—or something cold.” Dongho pant still slightly out of breath, his sweaty palms were there to prove it. Jonghyun shyly nodded, looking forward to their shared cone of ice cream.

 

Eunwoo peeled her eyelids far back after sneaking up behind Aaron at the lunchroom the next day to peek at the interesting data on his phone.

“Wait, Minhyun privated his account too?” She exclaimed catching Aaron in middle of scrolled through Hwangs profile, not expecting anyone to be standing right behind him right then. The short boy immediately jumped to hide his cellphone.

“Eek! Who the fuck are you?” Aaron squealed, at first not realizing who his attacker was. Aaron looked for help at Mingi who had been busy chewing on a snack with empty eyes. Obviously, he was not going to jump to his defense today.

“Relax,” Eunwoo scoffed. “I was gonna ask you guys if you’ve seen Jonghyun or Minhyun together?” She then sat down beside the pair and pointed back at Aarons now hidden phone.

“Hey, how come they always lock down their accounts, like that? Its almost like you just could not make it any more obvious that your sweetheart has ditched you, at that point you are pretty much announcing it to the whole world.” She questioned the other two, yet received little response aside from clueless shrugs.

“I’m over here just trying to figure out if the two fought or not, It would make for some quality gossip on this boring campus, wouldn’t it?” She poked Aaron trying to get him to laugh along with her, at least a little snicker would do, however, the American student would not budge, sitting still as a stone.

She cleared her throat, before turning again to Aaron. “Soo— why are you checking up on Minhyun anyways, you guys talk?” Eunwoo started to feel as if the guy was up to something too.

Aaron spoke without realizing it, worried all over his face, “I’ve been trying to, but I can’t seem to get to him anymore. He has cut off online communication.”

“Since when are you guys even friends?” Mingi acted shocked. And realizing that so many eyes were on him right now, Aarons voice began to stutter with anxiety, “We started talking back at the lake—the lakeside party.” 

“You’re usually obsessed hitting on girls at parties, why on earth would you instead get to talking with someone like – Hwang?” Mingi tilted his face sensing some kind of a strange aura being given off by his friend, a liar aura. The guy quickly averted his gaze and the seats became quiet once more.

The woman puckered her lips in anticipation, waiting for someone at the table to speak, but these two wouldn’t even speak to one another, she took the matters into her own hands.

“So what’s up with you two? Its so freaking sad over here.” She started to roll down the sleeves of her own shirt like it was freezing cold.

“Dongho has abandoned us, now he only hangs out with Jonghyun.” Mingi plucked his teeth away from whatever stale treat he had been nibbling on for the past five minutes.

That guy had absolutely forgotten about his best friends once he became so infatuated with his childhood nemesis. The two lonely friends hated to be crybabies, but now they actually missed the guy, fearing that their life did not serve much purpose anymore if they weren’t a trio.

“That is not the end of the world now, is it?” Eunwoo tilted her face, trying to think of reasons these two were so upset by it.

“They already have had sleepovers together. Sleepovers. You know what that means, right?” Mingi raised his eyes, almost tearfully gazing at the clueless female.

Eunwoo opened her mouth to speak, only to snap back from the table in surprise, once Aaron had interrupted her question by pounding his fist down on the table to growl something through his gritted teeth. 

“That was our innocent little baby boy, our fucking son.” His tone made her wish she had never even asked this in the first place, these guys were fucking weirdos.

“Jonghyun has poisoned his pure and young mind, that man – he has taken Kang from us.” Aaron slowly unclenched his fist after the rant was done.

Eunwoo stared back at the two in interest, “Yeah what’s up with those two these days, they friends now or something?” Aaron and Mingi exchanged slow stares, both keeping their lips sealed.

“You know what, I really don’t like this secrecy around here.” Eunwoo shook her finger in air as a warning, before getting up to join the next table to share the new gossip with her other friends.

 

After many missed classes, people in Jonghyuns circle had started assuming he had turned into a total slacker. So it was a surprise when he had actually showed up for a change. Of course nobody believed that Jonghyun had been sick, instead assuming he had instead been grinding for days in some online video game again. In reality, Jonghyuns attendance was only because of Donghos wish, that guy became ecstatic over the smallest things, even one such as this.

After arranging to meet in between their classes, Jonghyun did not expected to instead find Dongho outside of the school building, digging in a flowerbed. The guy noticed Jonghyuns shadow cast over him, and when he recognized the familiar face of his boyfriend he panicked, caught in middle of such an indecent act.

“Jonghyun, hey! I—Uhh—” He could not hide his soil covered hands. “I dropped my keys earlier, they gotta be here.”

The boy repeated, “Keys? Here?” Jonghyuns voice sounded so untrusting of the other male squatting over the flowers, unearthing those poor marigolds.

“Yeah, I ran my way to school and took a bad leap over these weeds, spilled my stuff. Now I can’t find my – keys, so I must of dropped them too.” The boy desperately folded through the low flower leaves looking for his – keys.

Jonghyun squat beside him, to help the poor guy, but he immediately denied help, “Ah, you really don’t have to. No, but seriously.” Dongho kept a forced smile on his face.

The other male sighed and ignored the pleas, “No way, I can’t let you dig through the mud like some kind of a vandal.” 

Dongho actually agreed, “Then, if you happen to see something shiny sticking out of the ground just don’t look at it, okay?”

The searched had ceased for a moment while Jonghyun collected his eyes at the guilty Dongho, “They are your keys right?” He asked twice already suspecting the other guy of lying.

“You know what, I’ll just go and check my beg again. Don’t bother!” Dongho hopped to his feet, clapping the dirt off his hands in a rush to leave, “Oh?” The gloomy boy noted and went with him too.

However by the end of his school day Jonghyun had again returned to the same spot, to keep searching for the keys on Donghos behalf. 

As he squat to the ground scouting under the low weeds, a small amount of rain drizzled on top of his head. He raised his chin to the sky, looking for the source of the wetness dotting his shoulders, gray cloud loomed over his head. It looked like it might actually shower soon, so he began to bend and fold each flowers apart in a rush. He was quickly in luck, the rain had flattened the soil, eventually revealing a silvery object sprouting from the ground.

Jonghyun lifted it up to his eye to laugh. Instead of keys, Dongho had lost a silver ring, so now Jonghyun immediately knew that the bastard was probably going to surprise him with his, although now his plans had been totally ruined. Jonghyun didn’t know how to feel about wearing a couple ring, but he guessed it was okay as long as Dongho liked this kinda stuff.

Jonghyun quit his thought noticing that the rain had stopped making contact with him, but it was still raining in the distance. Realizing something was hovering him, he looked back to see a pair of feet standing next to him, he faced the stranger and recognizing his face, jumping to stand. The red string around his wrist yanking away from the stranger.

Minhyun had stood over his friend holding an umbrella above his head to guard him from the weather. A long red thread drooped down to Jonghyuns wrist from his own.

“Why are you here?” Jonghyun shrieked in presence of his friend, “I told you to not go near me again.” He openly told him off, not realizing how cruel he sounded.

“I just wanted to get a chance to talk to you, that’s all.” Minhyun spoke quickly, already expecting Jonghyun to run from him again.

Minhyun stood there waiting for a response, but Jonghyun was not going to say anything, only glaring at Minhyun with a face similar to disgust, “I don’t mean to be weird or get in the way.”

There were still no words leaving Jonghyuns mouth, he was terrified of Hwang by now, and angered by the fact that Minhyun probably knew this too, but still insisted on seeing him anyway.

Minhyuns eyes shifted to the glimmering object within the hold of Jonghyun “Is that a promise ring?” He felt happy for his friend, ever since the had stopped talking Minhyun had no clue what was happening between him and his boyfriend. 

Jonghyun saw it as Hwang getting into his business for no reason, it felt like a threat to him, so he ended up snapping at Minhyun worse than he had ever before, “Why can’t you just leave us alone?” He yelled his loudest.

Minhyun stood in place, wondering what he done so wrong to deserve being yelled at, “Jonghyun,”

“I hate it when you’re just actively avoiding me, I think its too much.” Minhyun spoke sincerely, he really missed his friend. Even though he somewhat understood Jonghyuns situation, the way his best friend had been treating him broke his heart.

The other boy had not even been listening, in fact he could have cared less about Minhyuns little plea deal, and instead warned him again, “Don’t try anything.” 

He continued, “From now on just do not ever come near me again, got it?” Jonghyun didn’t even wait for Minhyun to open his mouth before he had already stomped off. The message was clear.

Minhyun couldn’t take a step forward to stop him, afraid to break the order his best friend had given him and making the guy hate him even more. The weight of the rain streaming down his umbrella, and his trembling knees, made him lower himself to the ground, wanting to be small and just disappear.

 

Something had been wrong with Jonghyun, everyone knew it by now. He still hadn’t showed his face outside of his house for days, avoiding something out there. Dongho really couldn’t figure it out either, going to his house as often as he could as the only way to see the man.

He was starting to feel bitter and sad. The fact that he couldn’t take the boy on dates as promised, or even meet him at school, almost felt like he was dating the guy in absolute secret. Dongho didn’t want to feel like that at all, it suffocated him bit by bit, because sometimes it really seemed like his boyfriend was doing it to purposely avoid him, and still hated him.

Jonghyuns family was probably not happy with him coming to their place like it was his own second home. But he just couldn’t help it, he wanted to be touched by Jonghyun and hear his silly laugh so much he could barely function.

He entered the bedroom expecting to walk Jonghyun to school today, yet seeing Jonghyun still asleep instead of packing his book bag only made the guy absolutely pissed. The two began arguing once Dongho had shaken him awake.

“Don’t make me drag you out!” Dongho roared, lifting Jonghyun enclosed inside of his duvet like a cocoon up from the bed. The body dropped to the ground with a thud, erupting into angry whines and something about Jonghyuns tailbone being broken.

Dongho unrolled the duvet like the red carpet, unveiling a red and panting Kim Jonghyun, who then quickly grabbed back to the corners of the blanket in retreat. “I’m not going to school, leave me alone, its early.”

“It’s noon!” Dongho now whispered, hating to have Jonghyuns family hear them fighting like they were kindergarteners again. Jonghyun shrugged, hiding his face under the same blanket, making it obvious that he wasn’t listening at all.

“Why do you keep skipping school, think of your parents, they are worried than me.” Dongho dropped to sit on the floor, kicking his feet.

Jonghyun poked his head out of his shield, and gave him that guilty and gloomy look, yet Dongho had no idea what it even meant. He was angry that Jonghyun would not tell him the matter, always only making up foolish excuses.

“It’s because of me, right?” The boy sighed, “You are embarrassed of being seen with me, is that it?” Dongho smirked to himself as if he had figured it all out.

“What? No that isn’t it.” Jonghyun didn’t get the chance to explain. 

“I get you though, you don’t want to risk outing yourself with dating a jackass like me.” He only added fuel to the fire.

“Dongho,” Jonghyun angrily called him out to make him quit making such outlandish claims.

The big guy was insecure, doubting himself at every chance before the judging eyes of Jonghyun, who he saw as the only item of importance in his life. He was so afraid to just lose him, that his brain had convinced him that he often wasn’t even worthy to be with him, and he would get thrown away someday anyway.

And Jonghyun knew it all, he could read the face of Kang like it was an open book. And it absolutely devastated him that Dongho would make himself believe he was some kind of an unlovable monster.

“Get a fucking grip, Dongho!” Jonghyun rushed to stand on his knees, taking the mans jaw in his palms and arching the head of the boy up, “It’s not your fault.” Like a spell, the other man instantly became calm. His anger melting away in Jonghyuns hands. “You are just being silly.”

“You are too. At least tell me what’s going on, I need to know if its because of me.” He insisted.

Jonghyun bit his lip, trying to decide if this should be the moment of truth or not, but the thinking just took too long. Dongho fired at him once more, pressuring him, “Fine, you know what, If you don’t say it right now—were over.”

Jonghyun shot his flaming eyes at Dongho looking straight back at him the same way, this guy was absolutely serious. However, all honesty, the guy had the right to call it quits, if this unhealthy secrecy continued for any longer he would become the main victim, Jonghyun understood.

“Considering that you will probably actually wish you had left me once I do tell you the truth. That threat isn’t very enticing.” Jonghyun spat back at him, feeling bitter.

“Then why are you hiding it from me, if its something that big?” Dongho groaned at the boy.

Jonghyun had enough and after two longer sighs, he finally began to spill, “You asked me about my eyes before, and why they hurt in crowded places. I did not tell you the whole truth, and honestly I have no idea if you’d even believe me even now.”

Jonghyun trembled while speaking, maybe it was his anger, maybe it was fear, but right now he was going to go full on out before his rush of bravery will eventually tank.

“I’m able to see soulmates with my eyes, connected by bright red strings from wrist to wrist.” He spoke.

Dongho stopped being angry for a second, trying to reason with Jonghyun even if he made no sense at all, “Red string of fate, I thought that was a children’s tale?” 

“So you don’t believe me?” Jonghyun knew. Dongho wasn’t even sure to trust him yet, “Just continue, I want to hear you finish first.”

“All my life I’ve been seeing them in secret, scared of being able to see and predict things I should not.” He mentioned.

“I never had one on my own wrist, until one day it connected me to you. I hated you back then, so fearing the thread on my arm, I cut it.” Jonghyun spoke in-between deep sighs.

Dongho gathered his eyebrows in one point on his forehead, “You what?” The guy had no idea if he even believed such ridiculous story yet, but the notion of Jonghyun trying to get rid of him angered him for a reason.

The eyes of the smaller boy became wider to clarify fast, “I realized that I changed my mind, but it was already too late. But then I decided to go out with you anyway. We do not need to be soulmates to date.”

“Hang on.” Dongho cut in, “So you are telling me—?” The guy felt like he had been punched in the face, confused and delirious. 

He didn’t know if he wanted to believe in such a childish story, but at the same time Jonghyun looked so absolutely serious, that either he was telling the truth, or was absolutely crazy.

“Is that way I couldn’t get rid of you for days, and then all of a sudden it became ten times harder for me just to see you? You must of cut it then.” Dongho remembered how that legend went now, the two fated would be pulled together everywhere and every time by an unseen force.

He saw Jonghyun nod. “But this doesn’t make sense?” The guy desperately pleaded, hoping that as long as he wasn’t the soulmate of Jonghyun, the legend wasn’t actually real.

Jonghyun looked far away, “I did something else to you, I am greatly sorry for it. So you don’t have to forgive me for it.”

“What are you saying?” Dongho took a desperate step forward, Jonghyun was scaring him.

“Your string won’t ever reattach to anyone else. While mine has already connected me to someone near me. The fate is punishing us for breaking the rules, the string was not meant to be cut.”

“Then why did you cut it!” Donghos voice jumped higher, and his hands landed onto Jonghyuns shoulders in a grip forcing him to look directly at him.

Jonghyun winced, he wanted to yell back, but there was no point of excuses for something he so dearly regretted, “I am sorry.”

He lowered his head for only a bit, “At this point I realize, you don’t have to actually believe me. I’m not asking you to. What I am going to ask you if you still want to be with me now that you know why I’ve been acting like this.”

Jonghyun knew it would be right to break up, but Dongho deserved the choice to choose, or at least that is what he had assumed would put his heart at ease the most.

“But—we are not soulmates anymore?” Dongho asked again ignoring the question directed at him, hoping he had misheard. 

Jonghyun shook his head, “I’m bound to go to someone else sooner or later. I’ve been avoiding seeing their face, hoping I can spend more time with you before it eventually happens.”

“Cool.” Dongho spoke in sarcasm, absolutely defeated. Now Jonghyun not leaving the house made sense to him, even though it was so totally stupid.

Jonghyun took that nod as confirmation that the other male no longer wanted to stretch this dead end relationship out any longer. Knowing Jonghyun had fate elsewhere, It only made sense for Dongho to get out of this quickly. However, Dongho did not actually see it that way at all. It wasn’t in his spirit to give up - give up someone like Jonghyun at that.

“Actually, I don’t want to break up with you.” Dongho, lowered his hands looking for the warmth of Jonghyuns palm, shocking the other male with his touch. “What?” Jonghyun worried, not seeing any reason behind such a decision. 

Dongho stood by his words convinced, “I just want to be with you, even if we can’t stay together for long. Lets just spend our every last second together happily and end up as friends.”

“I really, really want to be with you, Jonghyun.” He promised before his boyfriend. Jonghyun really wanted to sob at this guy for being so foolish. 

Donghos hand slipped from his and instead found a new spot around his back, Jonghyun stood idle as the other man hugged him so tight. “What if you are making a mistake right now, what if you regret it?” Jonghyun couldn’t stop talking about it.

“Screw regretting things. I would probably regret this more if I didn’t stay with you.” Dongho breathed against the neck of the other male, tickling and making him squirm away his chin.

“Dongho, I—” The timid boy wanted to sound important, but his voice had faded in an instant as soon as Dongho hugged him, proving that he still loved him just as much.

Dongho hushed him by smacking down a quick his on his neck and fled backwards, knowing Jonghyun usually hated whenever Dongho sneaked up and did that. 

Jonghyun didn’t mind it this time however, he actually needed that right now. His eyes begging Dongho to burry him in more kisses just to prove he wasn’t going to change his mind.

“But why couldn’t you just say this sooner?” Dongho felt hurt, he understood Jonghyun was anxious and scared of many things. But Dongho was desperate for his boyfriend to just trust him in full.

“Would you even believe me?” Jonghyun raised a fair point. “Guess not, It’s really hard to believe you aren’t just a stalker.” Dongho laughed, infecting his boyfriend with a smile as well.

“Are you serious, about all of this? You still want me?” Jonghyun had finally paused his grief.

“Yeah, why the hell would I be joking about this?” Dongho insisted he was right, even after saying things so unbelievably corny, and his angry blushing always cheeks made Jonghyun laugh.

“Are you sure this will even work out in between us from now on?” Dongho sulked watching Jonghyun force himself to even speak right now.

“I just gotta always trust myself.” Dongho shrugged. “But how can you trust yourself to always be right?” Jonghyuns just wanted to sound honest, but ended up making Dongho groan instead.

“Just shut up, you punk.” Dongho patted his shoulder with heavy pats, forcing Jonghyun to straighten his back. Slowly he began to raise his big sad eyes back on Dongho.

“Hey, do I still have to go to school today?” Reminded by what had even gotten them into this argument in the first place, Jonghyun was now asking Dongho for permission, as if the guy was his own dad. 

“Nah, I don’t wanna go either.” The bigger male had no excuse to not go, other than the fact that it just felt right to him to stay by Jonghyun right now. He scooted over to the other male, to imply his desperate want for hugs instead.

The two laid together in Jonghyuns bed, watching the final rays of sun sneaking through the window blinds draw from one end of the room to the other, as the distant light became low.

The two didn’t talk or move, they had become too lazy and sad to do much else. Facing one another, whilst holding their hands cupped in-between them. Occasional puppy kisses littered Jonghyuns nose and cheeks, Dongho would give them away every few minutes to remind the other male he had made the right choice to stay.

Dongho tried to stay silent without asking much more than they already discussed prior, but one unanswered question on his mind was still dying to be let out.

“Who is it, your new soulmate?” Dongho figured it had to be someone already close to Jonghyun, if he was that afraid to show his face past the step of his bedroom.

Jonghyun flinched a little, but guessed it would only be natural for Dongho to be curious about such a thing, “Do you really want to know?” He sighed and the other male quickly thought it over.

“No, I don’t.” Dongho instead shrugged that scary thought away. He just wanted to live out what little time they had together, until the fate would eventually put his boyfriend with someone else.

 

“Here, read this paragraph and see if it makes sense to you.” Dongho handed his laptop to Jonghyun, despite the non-stop whining about the load of work they had yet to compile. 

“Read the whole thing?” Jonghyun already wanted to throw up from boredom.

Some days had already passed and the two were still struggling to finish their project, the deadline was just around the corner and they had literally spent all this time just messing around with each other. It was evident that they were going to fail harder then ever this time.

“It’s not that that long, I haven’t even finished writing it.” Dongho waved his finger at the screen and only after a long, defeated sigh the other male began to read.

The shorter male waited for the verdict sitting close to Jonghyun, almost pressing foreheads with him. Being so up close with his crush made Dongho instantly forget all about the homework, and while Joghyun was eagerly reading, the other boy slowly leaned in to sneak quick kisses.

“Hey, you are distracting me.” Jonghyun stressed that he couldn’t read the text on the screen with the other guy in the way. 

“You are distracting me too.” The mans words made him feel the gross butterflies in his stomach, desperately trying to gnaw their way out.

Jonghyun snickered, going back to reading instead of giving in to Dongho trying to tempt him, but not even a second later his dumb idiot boyfriend was already trying to repeat the kisses, lured in by the irresistible kissable face of his so handsome classmate. 

Yet this time, Jonghyun had stopped the act by slapping his hand over Donghos whole face, cupping it all inside of his hand and pushing him away. All while the other student was squirming and whining something about him not being able to see and going blind.

“Hang on, I found a typo.” Jonghyun didn’t even notice his friend tumble and fall in the background, eyes busy peeled to the screen. 

The larger male groaned in faked agony, trying to trip Jonghyuns legs as he sat from the ground to move to his bed, purposely fleeing from the increasingly louder male.

Dongho sat on the ground legs crossed while Jonghyun typed away at his laptop too lazy to do anything else, up until he heard the laptop lid shut. Jonghyun felt the same way, he was getting tired and lazy, and was in dire need of a break.

Dongho watched a bit too anxiously as Jonghyun laid back as if he was about to nap, trying not to be weird by asking if he could join without being invited first. His crush recognized the desperation on his face, and with a pleased grin he patted the bed, asking Dongho to indeed feel welcome to hop in.

The two guys slid into an odd hug, initially cuddling together for as long as needed, but Jonghyun had soon realized that now Dongho would probably never let go. Any attempts to leave the comfy bed made only resulted in the guy clinging to him like a distressed animal. Jonghyun had no choice, but to nap for a bit.

The worlds heaviest weight sat on him, Jonghyun reopened his eyes after a thirty minute nap and looked down to see the other male still clinging around his hips, head resting on top of Jonghyuns stomach. The minute Dongho realized that his friend had been awake, he arched his chin up and peeked an apologetic smile, begging the other man to let him cuddle him for an extra ten minutes.

Jonghyun chuckled at him, “You can’t stay here for much longer, my parents don’t let people stay overnight.” The clock already neared a scary hour.

The other boy frowned to himself, pressing his face into Jonghyuns stomach to show his protest, he was so comfortable right now, he didn’t want to ever leave.

Jonghyuns face was starting to hurt from so much grinning, and then he ended up shooting into a fit of giggles when the other boy nuzzled his nose against his tummy, “Hey come on lazy, get up already.” He protested.

Jonghyun struggled to shake away, instead the other body eagerly flopped up higher to balance on his chest. Jonghyun rolled him to the side with an over dramatic groan. The two boys laid in bed side by side looking up at the ceiling for a long moment with nothing left to say right now, just laying down together in silence was fine too for Dongho.

“Are you sure I can’t stay here till morning?” Dongho dropped his head to his side, unable to find reason to lift himself from the bed anymore. Jonghyun curled his lips into a doubtful waved line, glancing at the other from the corner of his eye.

“Fine,” He smiled again, “As long as you manage to sneak out before breakfast.” He made Dongho break into a joking sob, “But the breakfast.”

Jonghyun treated his friend with a proud smug, before cutting the banter to act reasonable, “It’s getting late, so you should really stay the night.”

“Well I guess I have to now since you’re practically begging me to.” Dongho murmured to himself, already feeling his eyes draw shut. Dongho napped first without taking his clothes off first, he didn’t feel as if that was necessary and Jonghyun agreed, opting out to just change the first thing tomorrow.

The bed was small, not enough for the two of them to lay on their backs without Jonghyun rolling off taking it to the floor. Dongho reopened his eyes wide in surprise at the bodies had shifted, Jonghyun had turned the larger mans shoulders away to make him sleep on his side, and now he did too. The bed got roomier.

Dongho was curled up, laying in-between the wall and Jonghyuns chest pressed against his back. Realizing the cuddling position Donghos heart began to pump, and his earlobes swelled with bright pink. The two stayed like that for a while, until it had become apparent that Jonghyun had gone to sleep, and now Dongho worried he might actually just die while stuck like this.

He made a tiny surprised sound jolting to the unexpected feeling Jonghyuns fingers dancing on top on his shirt, a hand holding his tummy. The culprit grinned with his eyes closed, pretending to be already fast asleep. The other boy made a displeased groan, blaming his friend for trying to tease him. Yet he didn’t really want for the hand to move away, Jonghyuns hand felt good. And before he knew it, that devilish hand had already tangled underneath his shirt for warmth.

Jonghyun could feel the boy squirm from the touch, and only further teased him, “Are you shy?” 

“Yeah.” Dongho spoke in honesty. It was his first time someone had ever held him like this, and Jonghyun could definitely tell, much to his own amusement.

The hand started to furiously trash inside of Donghos shirt, fingers running all over his tummy. The boy began to squirm with giggles, unable to lean out of the attack. “Quit it, that tickles!”

Jonghyun laughed in the voice of the devil, sitting up in bed to tickle his friends sides as well. Dongho hopped from bed laughing, using a pillow as a shield and Jonghyun chased him around, his fingers crawling and folding, eager to tickle a certain tummy.

 

The sunlight pooled into Jonghyuns bedroom, leaning rows of light scattered across the room through the shut blinds. A beam of light had somehow found itself in Donghos hair resting above of another sleeping body below. Another ray of light crossed Jonghyuns arm fallen over of the edge of the bed.

Both of them had ended up stripping down to their underwear last night, deeming it had been too hot in the room after all of that tackling, but naturally ended up falling asleep trembling in the cold under the same blanket, although they had to sacrifice some of their limbs to the cold to make it work. Within the next morning, the blanket still ended up being thrown to the side, two very bare bodies stacked exposed to the warm morning sun.

Dongho shot his nose up from Jonghyuns chest, and woke up with a lion like yawn. The hair of the still very much sleepy male reminded of an unkempt bird nest, and the texture on his jaw had become more obvious in the next morning after Jonghyuns and Donghos little sleepover.

He blinked at the blurred out face of Jonghyun before him. And while he was still half-asleep his first notion was to give the boy a big sloppy smooch. He moved his elbows in position, pausing above Jonghyuns sleeping face, yet as soon as he gave his own lips a lick of preparation, Jonghyuns eyes shot wide open like he was in a horror film.

“What are you doing.” Jonghyuns statement made Dongho fully awake, his pupils shrink to dots.

The accused sat up to scratch the back of his head and foolishly smile to himself, “Ah, sorry.” And Jonghyun shared the same expression as him. Jonghyun thought that Dongho waking up was just the most adorable thing, it was so rare to see his hair all messy and face puffy in the morning.

“We never finished our work.” Jonghyun admitted remembering their last night. “We are going to flunk it.” The other boy added, and he couldn’t agree more, “Totally.”

“Are you going to shower here or at your own house?” Jongyuns weight rose from the bed, sending Dongho into hurry that he had to get up too. The male was desperate for more seconds of rest, side by side with his big crush.

He paused before speaking, very carefully, “We can just go in and wash up together?” 

The regret was imminent, “Ah, never mind I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He looked away, fingers folding around his own earlobe, as Jonghyun went on and laughed at him. “What are you thinking about again, you weirdo?”

“Who are you calling a weirdo!” Dongho made a mean look, that looked silly in contrast with his rosy red cheeks filled with embarrassment.

 

Jonghyun and Dongho nervously stood in front of the entire lecture hall, presenting their work on the screen behind them. The teachers response was obviously lukewarm, and it was evident that their final grade would suck, but wasn’t like it was unexpected. But at least it was all behind them now.

Jonghyun walked out of the hall after class almost tripping into the first hallway seat he saw out of exhaustion. He was still feeling very much on the edge, unable to hide the signals from his boyfriend who had worried for him the entire day. 

By now Kang had already guessed that Jonghyuns new soulmate was someone present at this school, someone who hadn’t shown up yet judging by Jonghyuns darting eyes, and this meant that the sorry loser could pop up at any minute.

Dongho pulled Jonghyun towards him by his fingertips to initiate a hug. Jonghyun didn’t hug back, but it was not unlike him to not express his fondness in a place public. Dongho pressed the bridge of his nose against his boyfriends neck, soothing the evil thoughts away.

“Dongho, someone is going to see us.” Jonghyun worried. “I want everyone to see.” Dongho grunt, the warmth of his lips almost leaving Jonghyun breathless.

Dongho obeyed and parted from the other boy, not before staring at him for long to make sure that ugly sulk on Jonghyuns face disappears for good. “Thank you.” Jonghyun murmured.

“For what?” Dongho didn’t receive a response, noticing Jonghyuns stare collect at someone walking up behind him. Prompting the bigger male to look back himself.

“Hey, guys!” Aaron appeared to greet his friend and their boyfriend. A second later Mingi showed up, giving Jonghyun just a nod.

“Woah, I totally haven’t seen neither of you in ages.” Dongho laughed in surprise, reading the displeased faces of his friends.

“Mingi, you cut your hair!” Dongho complimented him, towering his palm above the head of the other male who successfully dodged it. “I actually grew it out.”

“Right.” Dongho clicked his tongue averting his eyes in embarrassment. Aaron instantly noticed the matching silver rings worn on the boys fingers, and point at those in awe, “O?” He gathered the attention of everyone else.

Dongho panicked, he had never told his friends he had proposed couple rings to his childhood nemesis So now they were probably going to forever make fun of him for being so corny and old fashioned. He grabbed Jonghyuns hand, covering up the ring with his own.

“Oh fuck, I’m actually gonna yack.” Mingi had witnessed their hands touch. Aarons eyeballs also twitched upon the impact of the hands smacking together with a slap. All the unspeakable things Jonghyun must of done to his innocent younger best friend during one of their sleepovers, was playing inside Aarons head like an old timey film reel.

Jonghyun felt awkward, everyone around him clearly overthinking it, he freed himself from Donghos hand and began to converse with his friends, apologizing and explaining that he had been sick and just needed someone to help him catch up to his school work.

Meanwhile, Dongho at all not listening had tabbed into his phone. Reading up on actually more interesting news. He had suddenly got a text, so without reading from who, it he instantly opened it.

“If you want to know who Jonghyuns new soulmate is, come to the gym.” Read a message from Hwang Minhyun. 

It only made sense that this jerk would know, him and Jonghyun were once best friends welded together by glue. Dongho raised his head wanting to tell his boyfriend first, but knowing him the guy would probably freak out for no reason. 

He even bit his lip in consideration, really wanting to know who that cursed soulmate was. Dongho silently slid his phone away, deciding to sneak off and check it out as quickly as he could, so Jonghyun would not notice a thing.

“Hey guys, watch this guy for me, eh?” Dongho began to walk backwards, one hand stuffed inside his jean pocket with his phone and the other waving from afar.

“Huh? Where are you going?” Mingi yelled back at him. “Bathroom, you wanna come too?” Dongho joked at his friends.

“Nah, have fun by yourself.” Mingi gagged, turning back to Aaron to ask him what should they do with this guy now in their precious care. Jonghyun didn’t say anything to stop the guy from leaving, although he was scared to be alone. He just didn’t want to seem that needy or clingy in front of these two.

 

Dongho found the gym court unlocked, but strangely abandoned. His feet echoed loudly in the high empty basketball room, not a soul in sight.

The big guy looked at his phone in desperation, trying to figure out if this was some kind of a weird ass prank Hwang was trying to pull off now that he was bored without Jonghyun. Donghos fingers stopped itching the back of his head, becoming stuck in his curls when he got the sudden sneaking suspicion that Minhyun might be Jonghyuns soulmate. Dongho hissed his breath thinking to himself, that loser better not be.

An utility door at the far end of the gym suddenly creaked open inwards, as if a person had just pulled it from inside. Dongho waited for a few seconds looking around, but there were no other signs or movement. The same door just ominously stood open, inviting him in.

“Hello?” He anxiously smiled.

Dongho started to walk slower once he put his foot past the doorstep. A small room opened up inside from here storing all kinds of gym equipment, hurdles, rolled up mats, nets of basketballs. But no people.

Once Dongho had walked in further past the door, it slammed shut behind him, he unveiling a person who had been hiding behind the door now locking it with a key. The man jumped, recognizing Minhyun.

“What the hell? What are you doing you punk?” He started to lose his temper, not liking the tricks that this guy was playing.

Dongho had no idea that up next the guy would just come up and punch his chest out of nowhere, the blow was so unexpected he ended toppling over falling onto equipment scattered on the floor. Right now Kang could only imagine that this guy was just looking getting his revenge for being pushed by him earlier himself.

“Ow.” He winced, after landing wrong on his spine. “Hey what on earth are you doing right now?” Dongho yelled over his own shoulder where Minhyun took hold of his elbows.

Dongho rolled forwards unable to balance himself with his hands held behind his back, eyes widening to the sound of a click. He furiously turned around to find himself cuffed, actually handcuffed to a pair of stacked hurdle legs, too heavy to lift from the ground all at once.

“Are you out of your mind, Hwang?” He yelled at the other male, who wouldn’t even look at him once, “Hey, are you even listening?”

“This is literally kidnapping, you idiot!” Dongho barked at Minhyun kicking away his hand as it reached for his foot, “You creep! Fuck off!”

Now it was Minhyuns turn to finally speak for himself, “I knew you wouldn’t comply even if I had explained, so this is the only way I have to do this.” Minhyun gritted his teeth at Donghos angry curses.

“How do you even explain this? Wait, you’re Jonghyuns soulmate then, right?” Dongho had suddenly stopped struggling.

Minhyun nodded, his face shrouded in worry. “I don’t care about it at all. I never wanted any of this either.” He sounded so full of guilt, “Jonghyun has been becoming so unhappy and he thinks it’s because of me.” 

Dongho pitied the friend of Jonghyun, the guy totally hated himself now. But whatever he was doing now was still not right, he was clearly losing it. The shorter boy figured he just had to calmly talk Minhyun out of this.

“Listen, uhh. I could get Jonghyun to talk with you, we could go through it all together?” Dongho pleaded, for a brief moment Minhyun stayed frozen actually giving it thought, before refusing and returning to his one true plan, whatever it was.

“I could just do something that would make Jonghyun hate me. Hate me so much that he would never look for me.” Minhyun recited to himself before turning to Dongho his eyes wide, “He already hates me, so what difference would it make?”

“You are actually scaring me dude.” Dongho tried to rattle his wrist inside of his cuffs attracting Minhyuns stare. The tallest suddenly grabbed to his foot and got rid of his shoe, fingers sliding behind the heel of Donghos sock.

“Hey you weirdo. Ah! that tickles, you fuck!” Dongho cursed and fought with his attacker, who had successfully taken his sock and bought it to his mouth. 

“Careful, I don’t want to be responsible for hurting you.” Minhyun apologized, gently pressing the fabric into the mouth of the man.

“Don’t even think about—” Dongho didn’t realize his wide mouthed name calling was only making Hwangs job easier, the rest of his sentence arriving to the ears of his captor as a muffled mumble.

 

Jonghyun sat by himself not trying to worry with where Dongho had gone for so long, the guy was forgetful, easily distracted. He probably had some good reason to wander off. Jonghyun believed he was truly overreacting right now, his stupid anxiety just getting at him at the worst of times.

It was already the end of all classes and he still had no clue where that bastard had gone, so he just decided to go home without needlessly bothering him with a text. Surprisingly, just then his phone gave him a buzz from the very same Dongho.

“Hey, I’m locked inside of the utility closet of the gym in a very private and compromising position, come help?” Jonghyun blinked at the text, that did not really read off quite as much as all his other texts. 

The grammar was proper and there were no useless emojis littering his whole screen. Jonghyun decided to dial him and ask how serious was it, only to get hanged up on instantly.

“Can’t talk. Just come get me.” He got another text from the guy. 

Jonghyun scratched his head in wonder, amazed how it was even possible for Dongho to somehow end up impaling his ass onto some gym cone after being left autonomous for only five minutes. He sighed and began to walk his way over there all by himself.

Minhyun watched the screen of Donghos phone in his hand dim, squatting down to match the eye level of his captive, who glared at him with spite.

This guy was absolutely dead meat for involving Jonghyun, once he finally breaks free he was going to fucking kill him, Dongho swore. Still throwing insults at the tall male even though his mouth had been already stuffed and taped over.

Soon enough, Minhyun heard footsteps arrive into the large gym room the same way he had when Dongho foolishly wandered into this same trap. This jerk had totally thought all of this out, but for what reason.

Jonghyun stalled his step realizing that the line of his red thread was actually leading him into the closed room in front of him. He started to suspect something, not understanding why Dongho would be in there with Minhyun. 

Just then his boyfriend began to whine and groan begging Jonghyun outside to not come that way, but his whines only made the boy run to him sooner. Jonghyun burst into the small closet room not expecting to see a scene of Dongho tied up.

Just like before, the door behind him shut and locked, Minhyun appeared before Jonghyun with balled up fists, this time with a baseball bat in his hands for a scare.

“Minhyun, what are you—?” Jonghyun spat out in shock. The tall boy knew he would be mad, he knew his friend would yell at him and make him cry, so he yelled first, “Get on the ground, right beside Dongho.”

“Are you absolutely out of your mind?” Jonghyun rejected his kind offer to instead call him out, Minhyun was totally nuts for pulling off a brave stunt like this.

The tall male fought not to answer, and gripped into the handle of his bat harder, “Do as I say.”

“You can’t hit me with that.” Jonghyun confidently believed that Minhyun could not even hold it right in his hand, let along swing.

“I can!” Minhyun yelled back, close to crying. “You are not a violent person.” Jonghyuns words checked out, the tallest was so scared that his friend was right. It was useless to threaten him.

“Do you think I ever wanted to do this?” Minhyun fought back tears that stung his eyes, he couldn’t let himself afford taking his eyes off the people he had captured and let them flee right now.

“No, you don’t.” Jonghyun spoke in a much softer tone, extending his hand and taking a friendly step forward to reason with his best friend. But it was too late for that.

“Sit.” Minhyun acted like he was going to swing it for real, and at that point Jonghyun figured he might just comply instead. Sitting down on the floor to hold Dongho close to himself.

Minhyun gasped, finally dropping the weapon and crawling on the floor to cuff Jonghyun as well. The man tried to struggle, rattle against the cuffs connecting him to Dongho, but to no avail.

“This is a crime.” Jonghyun reminded his friend, who was clearly aware of the fact. In hurry he was already digging through a duffel bag, the pair stared over their shoulders in horror, trying to see what type of torture device the crazy bastard would pull out next.

Jonghyun rode his eyebrows on his forehead low in anger, offended by the single strange item Minhyun had uncovered, a red ball of yarn.

“Is this a jest?” Jonghyun yelled at him feeling as if this was some kind of a mockery. Minhyun simply ignored his pleas and still proceeded to arch himself in-between the backs of the two men pressed together. 

“I am really sorry about all of this, seriously.” Minhyun began to speak nonsense. The red string tangled and made knots all over Donghos and Jonghyuns arms, he used it as a rope to practically tie them together. 

“Just, don’t break it, please.” Minhyun begged the two, trying to calm them only just now.

“This isn’t funny.” Jonghyun hissed at him, and Dongho did too, even though his mouth had been sealed off.

“Just try to endure it for a little bit longer.” The tall male apologized again, Jonghyun wished he could rip off his head instead. It all seemed like a joke. “Free us, you jerk!”

The tall male had finished his task, looking for apology in Jonghyums eyes for one last time before leaving the room. The two struggled to call out for him, or anyone else who had the heart to free them. Minhyun had teasingly left the keys to their binds right there, only meters away from where they sat. But they soon realized, the help would not be arriving any time in the near future, as the main lights of the gym faded from underneath the frame of the door.

The two were locked here in absolute darkness for the whole night, until someone would come in and discover them the next day. This was ridiculous, Jonghyun had no clue what was that idiots problem.

He turned to Dongho, who was desperately trying to somehow lean out of his binds to no luck, realizing that there was no way out anymore his claustrophobia was starting to kick in. Dongho began to gasp, and in panic Jonghyun looked everywhere around him for something that could help to free them or make enough noise to attract help from outside the gym. But first he needed to calm him, Jonghyun learned to get off the tape from his mouth first.

Duct tape did not work like it did in the movies, it barely stuck to his cheeks and only by simply biting into one of the peeling edges Jonghyun was able to peel it off, the hardest part was just trying to bend their necks back in reach. When finally freed, the poor guy choked and wheezed turning away from Jonghyun looking at him over his own shoulder, a wet piece of cloth slipped out from his mouth.

“T-thanks.” Dongho breathed to the floor. Yanking his head back after a while when he was back to normal. “You okay?” His boyfriend tried to find a way to hold his hand behind him.

Dongho also tried his best to turn to face Jonghyun, but the cuffs kept grinding against his skin, “I’m fine.”

“This sucks.” Jonghyun announced, “Yeah.” The other voice agreed.

Dongho sighed at the ceiling and so did Jonghyun, both feeling annoyed, exhausted from the useless struggle. At least after this, Minhyun would totally get written up for such a prank, and after a lot of thinking it had accrued to them at the same time, that maybe that had been his goal all along in order to distance from Jonghyun.

Jonghyun shook his head, not believing his stupid friend would ever come up with something so elaborate like this, if he really wanted to, he could just stop coming to school. But Dongho would put more thought into that theory.

“Minhyun actually told me that he was doing this to make you hate him. That way you could be happy with me.” Dongho arched his neck back, trying to communicate with the guy glued to his back.

Jonghyun let that sink in, “He did?” Donghos head bobbed, “Or something like that. The guy wasn’t making too much sense really.”

The timid male whined, “That guy, I seriously cant believe him.” He felt the hand of Dongho sneak around his finger to still be able to hold him even from such petty angle. 

“The fate must really have to be unavoidable then, if he is going such lengths just to delay it.” Dongho laughed to himself, shaking Jonghyuns ground beneath him.

“Delay?” Jonghyun panicked to deny it as much as he could, “Dongho, I’d never.”

The other male didn’t try to fight Jonghyun, he was only being wishful, and Dongho had the same wish as him, so he knew exactly how the guy felt. Jonghyun was in denial, in a very long one. Turns out he was actually even more stubborn than Kang.

“You don’t hate him right?” Dongho put on a smile, trying not to let himself be sad over something he could not prevent. 

“I am trying to.” Jonghyuns voice became low, he knew his friend had a kind heart. Till now, he hadn’t realized how much he had hurt Hwang by pushing him away, and began to blame himself.

“Don’t, he is a good kid. He has stupid ideas yeah, but he’s good nevertheless.” Dongho spoke in a voice meant to cheer Jonghyun up, “He should’ve been paired with you to begin with.”

“That’s nonsense Dongho.” Jonghyun raised his voice ready to argue, but Dongho didn’t say anything back. He just silently sat there accepting that no matter how much they insisted, none of this would eventually matter.

Dongho loved him, he loved Jonghyun so much he felt as if his heart would just burst. So it pained him actually knowing that he was only a temporary person in Jonghyuns life.

Jonghyun could read what Dongho was thinking of without even looking at him, understanding that they were both equally hopeless. His finger nervously picked on the ring Dongho had given him. Dongho heard his childhood nemesis cry away from him, it was so sad that he wasn’t able to hug him either.

“Dongho,” The crying male sobbed out in a tortured voice, “If I ever stop looking at you – If I ever look elsewhere – you have to make me stop.”

Dongho spoke without thinking, “I can’t make you stop when you are already gone.” 

Hearing him say such a bittersweet thing made Jonghyun sob even harder. He opened his mouth to say sorry, make a hundred dozen apologies for ever cutting that stupid string when he shouldn’t have. But nothing came from his mouth other than broken gasps for air.

“Be with the one you love even if its not me.” Dongho squeezed his hand harder, encouraging the other male to just stay strong and move on.

Jonghyun understood, and began to frantically shake his head while sobbing to try and force himself to agree, but somewhere in between those nods, they had turned into him shaking his head from side to side in denial instead.

Dongho wanted to cry too, but not in front of Jonghyun. He let the water wet his eyes, but he didn’t make a sound. Closing his eyelids to try and sleep it all off instead. His hand still clung to Jonghyuns crooked finger, squiring against his palm as if it could make him stay forever.

The room fell into silence, neither of them deciding to yell for help anymore. It was far too late for anyone to hear them anyway, and they were far too tired mentally to stay awake. 

Only long after they had both already fallen asleep, a silent hush ran across the windowless small room.

 

The sky was quickly becoming darker, and the schools parking lot had almost emptied out of all student cars parked there. Except for Aarons, which stood with its interior lights switched on and all doors wide open while the short legged boy struggled to wiggle out of the car, arranging his stuff.

He poked his head out of the back just in time to see Hwang coming his way with a bag thrown over his shoulder. The guy looked mysteriously static, but his fast strut lead Aaron to believe that he must be angry.

“Hey! Need a lift home?” Aaron waved to the classmate far off from him, upon responding to his voice Minhyun immediately code switched and put on a bright smile to greed the fellow student.

“Yeah, don’t mind if you take me somewhere.” Minhyun winked, passing Aaron to throw his duffel bag into the backseat of Kwaks car.

The short boy felt the inviting wink pierce his chest like an arrow, to unfreeze he needed to frantically shake his head, setting himself back on track.

He poked his head back into the car to see what Minhyun had stuffed back there, taking a note of the zipped up sports bag. “You coming from the gym? I thought you don’t go to there by yourself?” Wide mouthed Aaron pointed out.

Minhyun partially ignored him, getting into the front seat of the car, before leaning his head back out the open car door to respond.

“Well it is certainly lonely working out all by yourself.” Minhyun made his face look smug before shutting his door, causing Aaron to shut all doors in his way and run waddling to the other side of the car to get in his seat next to Hwang.

“I can totally go with you!” Aaron landed at the wheel out of breath from the short jog. Minhyun saw him as very persistent, “Yeah, you could use some work out.”

“Hey what is that supposed to mean?” Aaron whined, losing his interest. Minhyun grinned and showed an address on Aarons gps of where he needed to be dropped off.

The address had been set to a district quite a drive away from here, “I thought you lived not far from school?” Aaron nervously chuckled.

“I got other places to go to first.” Minhyun leaned back into his seat, assuring Aaron with another wide smirk, causing the boy to slip while turning his keys. 

“Uh, uh-huh.” Aarons engine had become turned on.

But for some reason, something about Minhyun right now did not sit well with Kwak, despite his convincing smiles. Since it was getting late and Minhyun wanted to drive towards the outskirts of the city, plus considering that late night mischief very much out of character for the tall handsome, Aaron was getting a bit worried for him. But nevertheless, the car engine roared and took off to the far destination.

Minhyun seemed uninterested in Aarons driving on the way, after a while he began to poke around the dashboard, finding papers the driver definitely didn’t want him to read.

Aaron reached one hand away from the wheel to take it back, but Minhyun smacked his hand, interested in the contents of the stapled pages. Aaron gave up and just let Hwang have his way.

“This is a very redundant plot point.” Minhyun said out loud. “What?” The weird had remark almost made Aaron turn away from the wheel he had been so focused on.

“I’m just reading it off from your paper here, are these your comments?” Minhyun skimmed through a small essay worth of handwritten text.

“Oh that? Yeah, those are my notes.” Aaron realized what the other guy had picked out to read, suddenly feeling flustered now that Hwang was the first one to find out about his writing hobby.

“Right, you’re doing journalism right?” Although Minhyun wore the look of boredom on his face, although he was actually quite impressed initially, not expecting much of Aaron Kwak.

“I am only – interested – in journalism, actually. I only write for good practice.” Aaron leaned his neck towards his passenger to clarify, but the guy had quickly lost his interest.

Aaron threw another secret glance at Minhyun, figuring the guy really wasn’t quite as sharp today. Maybe it was because it was already late after a school day, but Minhyun didn’t feel quite like himself tonight. The boy had put the papers back without apologizing for peeking at them in the first place.

Bored again, he began reaching back behind him to get his phone out of the bag instead. “Ah, careful.” Aaron winced as Minhyun mishandled the heavy weight from the back seat to the front seat, and plopped the whole duffel bag in his lap.

Aaron was trying to keep his eyes peeled to the road, although he couldn’t help, but to throw one quick glance inside of Minhyuns bag.

“Are- are those real handcuffs?” He stuttered, shooting his eyes back straight after having seen what he had seen just now.

Minhyun did not feel shy to pull them out of his bag and wave them in air, “I had one spare!” He giggled, watching a nervous gulp slide down the throat of the other male.

 

The doors of the utility room had opened the next morning with blinding light, tall and dressed up basketball players had discovered the two losers asleep and drooling on one another.

Dongho welcomed the bunch with a wide smile, recognizing his friends amongst the confused faces, and while lead by a nervous smile, he had somehow convinced them not to seek out the details of how the two had gotten in such a strange position. Plus, after finding Donghos lonesome wet sock crawling on the floor, they hardly even wanted to know.

The two unfitted the cuffs off their bruised arms, still wondering where that weirdo had even gotten these in the first place, the various probable uses now racing through Donghos head were only making him want to get these off quicker.

Jonghyun sat on the ground outside of the gym right beside him, angrily tearing through the red yarn Minhyun had tangled at least twenty times around his arms. If his motive was to piss of Jonghyun, then he had certainly done so.

“This is so embarrassing.” Jonghyun winced, anxious to have had been seen by so many curious eyes, “Everyone will probably misunderstand.”

Dongho snort, not giving two shits, “At least they didn’t realize we have been kidnapped.”

“I rather take that than to hear gossip about me being chained up with – you.” Jonghyun threw a judging glare at his boyfriend. To Dongho, it was kind of adorable whenever Jonghyun got all embarrassed like this for no reason.

“Hey, lets not report Hwang for this. Right?” Dongho pleaded with Jonghyun, not wishing to get that idiot and themselves in more potential trouble. “Fine.” Jonghyun didn’t really want to deal with that either.

“Just help me – get all this off.” Jonghyun wailed his arms, red ripped yarn stuck all over his clothing.

Dongho grinned, pulling out a pair of snippers and began to cut the knots off so the whole web would be easier do undo. As he began to cut the string at random angles, at one point he had almost accidentally cut into his finger instead, jumping to the sudden sound of thunder breaking over the building.

“Strange,” Jonghyun made a comment while looking up at the ceiling as if he could see the sky, “What is?” Dongho nervously chuckled, glad that Jonghyun had not made fun of his fear of noises.

“The forecast didn’t mention a thunderstorm today.” The other male spoke with his jaw hanging open to the ceiling.

“What are you – a fan of the weather or something?” Dongho started to mock him. “No I just like the rain.” He returned to his task.

“Cut here too.” Jonghyun raised his bored wrist.

Dongho looked around dumbfounded by Jonghyuns order, “But there is nothing there?”

“Stop being lazy already.” Jonghyun now commanded. “I am serious!” The desperate whimpers of his boyfriend did not convince him, he twirled the scissors from the mans hand and cut at it himself.

“Huh?” Jonghyuns pupils became just small shaky dots upon impact of the blades. Now Dongho was seriously getting worried, “Is everything okay?”

“Dongho,” The voice of the man was so tiny and quiet, “The string.” His ominous tone had even given the other man chills.

“The what?” An invisible loading bar appeared and became stuck above the head of Dongho.

“The red string! It reappeared!” Jonghyun yelped in joy, launching himself forwards at the man into a toppling hug.

“Huh? What?” Dongho ignored the pain of his body squished under Jonghyuns, speaking in absolute disbelief, “But how?”

“I don’t know!” Jonghyun almost cried, tugging on the string Dongho could not see, the other make sighed in relief to the sound of his boyfriends happy laughter and quiet screaming.

 

A loud strike of thunder sounded somewhere off into the distance, the morning was rainy, leaving no part of the town dry. Minhyun sat lonesome in the middle of a flooded driveway, lost in quiet housing neighborhood not anywhere near his own. His clothes worn from yesterday had been soaked deep wet.

The day before this, the pitiful man had blown all of his savings to buy a yarn of wool that would do the opposite of Jonghyuns scissors, connecting two people who were not meant to be. It needed to be tied around two people before midnight, and that’s why to insure it worked, Minhyun had trapped them in a room where they couldn’t undo it.

He figured that if they knew what it was they would choose not to reattach the string, because every time they messed with fate, someone was always bound to be hurt. In this case, Hwang knew it would be him, and accepted that as a fact. A pair of his very special scissors were still hooked through his fingers, ones he had used to separate himself from his best friend. He clutched to them with trembling hands, his pained face hidden behind the sleeve of his wet shirt.

Minhyun quietly gasped and whimpered, for nobody to hear. He lowered his head, sitting with his body bent forwards as it choked and trembled by itself to accompany his sad sobs. Minhyun felt all alone under the judgement of the clouded crying sky, that was upset by his sin.

The boy did not notice footsteps gather from behind him. In a moment of hope, he gasped turning around expecting to see someone else. The shopkeeper had her shop stationed nearby. She had seen the figure of a man squatting under the rain and decided to approach him, being able to very well recognize her own customer, who had visited her last night.

Minhyun blinked his tired cried out eyes to the woman who held her black umbrella over his head, only helping him, because she didn’t want the misrable guy to catch a cold like this.

The boy quickly averted his gaze, realizing the person coming to his aid was not someone his heart had been aching for. And continued to cry to the ground beneath his feet.

The witch sighed, rolling her eyes before speaking, “If you were going to be like this, I would have never sold to you.” She recalled how ecstatic Minhyun had been to pay over the price just to get his order made sooner.

Minhyun shook his head, believing that he had just done what he had to do. There was no other better way. “Jonghyun wouldn’t even talk to me. I just wanted my friend back.” Minhyuns sudden desperate yell was muffled by the shower of rain.

“Is that it? You’d do all that for him, just because you simply wanted to stay friends with him?” Pinky refused to believe him.

“It doesn’t matter!” Minhyun kept trying to wipe his tortured red eyes, “I don’t care about myself right now, I just want him to be happy first.”

The boy felt so disgustingly pitiful to Pinky, she didn’t know what to do. The guy had managed to secretly fall for his best friend, but forced himself to let go just to be good. Minhyun knew that just because the string tied him and Jonghyun together, would not mean that he would lead a happy life. The boy was only happy with Dongho.

“Keep telling yourself all that.” She freed one of her arms from the handle of the umbrella to see the time on her wristwatch, not long before leaning down to lift the helpless and unwilling male from the ground.

“Do you need a lift home? I can take you by car.” She offered. “No, I got someone to call.” 

The voices of the two talking became faint as the two figures walked further back the road, their silhouettes fading out in the distance behind the thick shower of rain fogging the street.

 

Suddenly it seemed like a quite a bit of time had passed in two weeks, the tree leaves around the campus had already been long dressed in different colors, and now only the mightiest of leaves still clung to the branches from being scattered in the wind. The waters around the city had all become too cold to swim in and every student-proposed class trip seemed to have gotten forgotten in the planning stages.

Eunwoo hated such slow mornings like this one, the classes happened way too early right after the last weekend day. She yawned taking a plop down next to another familiar face in the cafeteria.

It seemed like the unpleasant changes in weather had gotten to this guy as well, constant fall showers made Mingi all bitter and grumpy. He was the perfect target for Eunwoo to pick on for today.

“How come you are always by yourself these days?” She gracefully sat, placing her chin on top of her crossed fingers.

Mingi sulked, hardly in his usual joke ready mood this week. “You must be too, if you have the time to come and bully me.”

“Haha, no I just think observing your angry face is interesting.” Eunwoo said what she thought was a proper apology, “Cheer up!” She raised her fists.

The guy had completely ignored her, instead looking into the distance at something with deep resentment in his eyes. Eunwoo followed that deadly glare and saw a group of students flock to the cafeteria, a lot of them were happy couples. Suddenly she had unlocked what was wrong with this fella.

“Is it the valentines day already? Everyone around me started dating, its gross.” 

Mingi scoffed watching his friend, Dongho desperately jumping around, up and down, just to make Jonghyun notice his cute new pastel pink bag mounted tight to his back. While his boyfriend was only interested in a cute fur keychain clipped to it’s zipper. These days, those two specifically had been literally – inseparable.

“Ughh, wish that was me.” Eunwoo wasn’t even looking at the couple, staring at her short nails.

The two people became equally as quiet and sad, almost sighing at the same exact time. Surprised by such perfect timing, they both of had raised their eyes to each other at the exact wrong time, and had made ominous direct eye contact with one another for a full second.

Eunwoo and Mingi both hissed at each other like cats, scattering from the table to flee, each in a different direction, as if their life depended on it.

 

Dongho separated from his soulmate for just a brief moment to grab his bike and steer it back out of the building, while Jonghyun was meant to be outside waiting him with his own already. Just thinking about their little adventure together after school, dare he say, a bike date, was making him feel all squishy and warm inside with ideas. 

He was so flustered and stuck in his own thoughts that when steering his bike through the door he did not notice them swinging to close his way.

“Woah!” A strangers hand managed to save him by catching the door just in time, stopping the bike tires from being clamped into the doorway. “Be careful.” Dongho looked up to the familiar smug face he had somehow learned to not despise, but tolerate.

“Hey, nice bike.” Minhyuns off-putting compliment made Dongho protectively clutch it to his waist in suspicion. “You going somewhere?” The tall boy continued to grin.

“Oh? I’m going on a small bike trip with Jonghyun today.” Donghos shy hand began to crawl behind his own neck to find something to nervously twirl.

Minhyun tilted his head, sucking in air in-between his gritted teeth in doubt, “Jonghyun is really clueless about riding bikes though?”

Dongho groaned, “Listen. Just because you were friends with him for longer doesn’t give you the right to come and educate me, Hwang.” Dongho felt offended that such a detail didn’t occur to himself sooner, so now their perfect date was potentially in shambles, according to Hwang.

The tall man laughed at the other male, “Just remember to have fun, you two.” Dongho nodded, carefully taking the advice.

“Oh, and one more thing.” Minhyun squeezed the door tighter for the handlebars to not be able to fit anymore, stopping the shorter male from leaving. Dongho shot his face to him, feeling this guy was really starting to pull on his strings.

He held up his wrist, “Tell Jonghyun to let me know when I grow another one, he kinda owns me the last one.” Minhyun gave his little buddy a wink, that was returned in the form of curses and empty threats, as Dongho pushed the rattling bike of his out on his own.

Jonghyun watched a huge smile glow up on Donghos face as soon as they saw each other outside. Behind him walked his old friend, who Jonghyun had since left in the past at his own request. Minhyun gave him a nod from afar, and Jonghyun didn’t think to do more than to just return the same gesture. 

Apparently he had heard Minhyun also began dating someone on the campus a few days back, however that part didn’t come as the biggest shock to him. Turns out every other gay guy in this school was his ex, this whole time Jonghyun didn’t have a clue, so this explained why nobody wanted to sit with the two during lunchtime.

Jonghyun tried to read further into the distance, recognizing Hwang stepping into a Aarons car and went to scratch his head in confusion. The two weren’t doing any school projects together, so it just was a bit odd to him.

Just then Dongho had finally pulled up, to show off his brand new sweet ride. It was a real eyesore compared to the previous bike he had wrecked.

“You know I hate red, it hurts my eyes.” Jonghyun cringed at Donghos new toy.

“Yeah that’s why I got it.” Dongho smirked with pride. “Seriously?” The other boy laughed in disbelief.

 

The wheels of Donghos red bike soared through the wind top speed, his tiny bike bell uneasily shaking next to his gripped fingers holding the handlebars tight. Dongho rattled the frame of the bike by pedaling up hill with all his might, not looking back.

He had finally reached the sea, a warm yellow glow laid over the beach right before the sundown, he had made it just in time. Finally after such a long road in travel, face erupted with smiles seeing the far off to the view of the whole ocean meeting him, almost at the tips of his fingers. He cheered, looking back to see how far the other boy behind him had gotten.

“Hey wait up, I’m not too great with this whole bike thing yet.” Jonghyun had hopped off his bike to instead push it up hill on foot.

The beach date was Donghos idea not his, the guy was always talking about going onto a beach trip right after the success of the previous student trip. So at one point, at the exact tail end of the last warm days of this year, Jonghyun gave in.

Jonghyun thinned his lips, hiding a tiny smile creeping onto his face as he approached the other man, impatiently waiting for him at the top of the hill at the other end of his red string of fate.

It was so nice to be able to see beach sparkle and glimmer in the light of the sun, feel the playful foam bubbles washing up on the warm sand of the shore with bare feet for the one last time before the winter.

By the time Jonghyun had made it up hill, he was already panting from exhaustion. “It’s just rocks out here, there is nothing out here to see.” The boy decided to whine to the other.

“If I say it’s a beach, then it’s a beach!” Dongho ignored him, throwing his leg back over the bike seat again to instead prompt a race with Jonghyun to the water.

The two exchanged equal smirks, instantly taking off straight into the long stretch of sand ahead of them, with Dongho heavily in the lead.

**Author's Note:**

> this was my first and perhaps last attempt to break out of my baekmin curse and write something else for a change. sry if it jumps around a bit i was writing this in between my depressive episodes
> 
> if this gets 2 kudos ill think about making a minhyun pov spin-off. but i will only think about it, nothing else
> 
> anyways i hope that the existence of this at least inspires others to write content, or at least content that is better than whatever this is, for the tag too!
> 
> if anyone is still reading this i made a twitter for shits and giggls @fishdongho


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